Mizer
by Torean
Summary: Darkness, what a pleasant treat. It lunged him into an ocean of dulled pain and little worry, but a hand always reached out and pulled him back to shore, back to a place where he gave his body to spare his only family. What a nightmare. -On hiatus-
1. Consequences

**(7-1-10) This fic is temporarily on hiatus. I just don't have the time or inspiration to continue it at the moment. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you.**

**

* * *

**

_"He's dead, he's dead. What have I done? God, no, what have I done?"_

_The pool of blood grew with every passing second, stretching out until it touched the walls and from there moving upwards to decorate each face of the room with a crimson gleam. He pulled the limp body close to him as sobs filled the air, his pathetic voice causing the thick liquid that surrounded him to ripple._

_"Come on, wake up. It was just a game, just a game. Wake up now," he pleaded, tapping the paled cheek with his long fingers. He knew what he had done, because his mind wouldn't let him stop thinking about it. The scene replayed itself in his mind over and over, overlapping into a maddening film of screams and struggle. But no matter what he knew, he could not face the fact that he had just taken a life and it was the life of the one person he cared about the most._

_"This is all wrong. Why? Edward, why? Why aren't you waking up?"_

_A scream ripped itself from his throat and the blood on the wall crashed down in a thick spray, quickly coming towards him in a tidal wave of metallic red and drowning him in its heaviness. So much blood. So...much..._

As he rolled over on the hard floor, his eyes slowly opening, he reasoned that the dream, no, the nightmare was just something of his slumbering mind. However, something in his heart told him that it wasn't exactly what he thought it was. He looked over at his brother, thrilled to see his chest lift and fall as he slept, but a deep frown fell on his face when the bruises and cuts that littered his brother's nude body reminded him where he was.

With every passing day, the beatings got worse. They hadn't touched him much, but his brother was hit the moment those bastards stepped into the room. He didn't know how much longer his brother could last, and he most certainly didn't know how much longer he could helplessly watch.

He stared up at the stone ceiling and tried to count how many days they'd been there. Of course, there was no such thing as night or day in this place. Time was lost to them. He sighed softly, though his mind screamed in frustration because he had no way to know the answer. He closed his eyes, hoping to fall back asleep.

_"Brother, are you still mad at me? I'm sorry, but I couldn't let you come here alone. We do everything together."_

_"You don't get it, Al. You're mortal again and this place is dangerous," Ed said. He looked back his brother and sighed. "Forget it, there's no going back now. Just stay close to me, okay?"_

_The younger Elric nodded, glad to be on his brother's good side again. He lengthened his steps and was soon walking next to the blond. Side by side, they trudged through the desert until they finally came to the camp site where they'd been instructed to report to. The camp site was located just outside an Amestris-owned, desert town._

_"Glad to see the desert didn't shrivel you up, Fullmetal," Colonel Mustang teased with a smirk as the two brothers entered his tent._

_"Shut up, bastard. Let's just get this over with already."_

_"Fine, fine. I've asked for you to come here to help with things. It seems there's been quite a disruption out here. The Ishbalans are regrouping and they're more than a little hostile. I don't really blame them. They're asking for their land back, but our side is staying strong to keep the land out of their hands.__"_

_"So, what do you want me to do?"_

_"They're are some civilians we're trying to evacuate out of here, but we've had two unsuccessful attempts at it. No casualties yet, but there were some serious injuries. We've been ordered not to fire back, because the government doesn't want another war on their hands. So far all the Ishbalans have done was thrown a bit of fire here and there. I don't think they really want to kill anyone who isn't a part of the military. Anyways, I've asked you here today to help evacuate these civilians. We need to get them out of here as safely as possible and you're the only person I could spare for such a task. Do you understand?"_

_"Yeah, yeah."_

Al's eyes shot open and widened while terror shook his body as the door, a thick wall of steel, opened and three men stepped in. He pushed himself against the wall in hopes that he would be sucked in by the cold stone and protected. No such luck.

A lump formed in his throat and his breathing picked up as one of the men approached him. He yelped as the man grabbed a handful of his hair and wrenched him to his feet.

"Let go!"

"Um, no," the man said with a smirk. His eyes were like to points of fires, red as rubies, and his skin was dark. What frightened him about this man was the half Glasgow smile on his face, a deep cut that ran from the corner of his mouth and all the way up into the hollow of his left cheek. He looked like something from a nightmare. No, he _was_ the nightmare.

"You've been very selfish, mutt," he said in a menacing tone. "Or maybe we've been too kind. Either way, we're not going to spare you any longer." He chased those words with a fist, sending it to connect with Al's jaw and knocking him to the ground. The man ran his feet into the teen's gut over and over, succeeding in making him vomit a mix of bile and acid.

Something kicked in his mind. He could hear something, but it sounded so muffled. He forced his eyes open, immediately feeling weak from the severe beating he'd received hours ago. Ed looked around, eyes widened enough to pop out as he saw his brother curled on the ground and begging for an end to his attacker's kicks.

"Hey! Let him go! Stop!" Ed yelled, unaware until then that there were two other men nearby. They grabbed his forearms tightly to keep him from physically intervening.

"Oh, look, mutt, you're friend's awake," the Ishbalan said, grabbing Al by his hair again and pulling him up to his knees.

Ed could see that his brother was to an end already. He looked weak and sickly from vomiting. Though he was strong, Al couldn't handle pain as well as he could.

"Shouldn't we show him what we can do, mutt?" The red-eyed man stuck out his tongue, trailing it over his captive's cheek. "Shouldn't we show him just how selfless you can be?"

Al struggled wildly as the man ran his hand over his stomach and grabbed between his legs for a moment. He squeezed his eyes shut as he fought to block out reality, but that did little as he was pushed on his back and his wrists were pinned to his sides by the man. He felt something thick touch him where he'd never even touched himself. He understood in that moment what was going to happen and it was something he couldn't prepare himself for.

He opened his mouth to beg, but found that someone else spoke for him.

"Leave him alone," the older brother said, his voice firm and strong. "Get the fuck off him."

"Watch your mouth," the man holding his right arm scolded.

"No, no, I'm interested. Why should I stop? If I were you, I would be encouraging this. He needs to be punished. Think about, he's been safe all this time thanks to you and he never once took your pain for himself. Doing this will even that, don't you think?" the Ishbalan with the scarred face said, his eyes challenging the blond.

"Please, leave him alone. Take me instead. He doesn't deserve this," Ed pleaded softly. "Please, spare him."

The man took a few seconds to think it over, then jerked his head at the other two Ishbalans. They let go of Ed and switched places with their leader, taking Al by his arms.

"You're a fool," the man said.

Ed didn't fight at all as he was roughly knocked to the ground. He didn't struggle as his left arm was wrenched behind his back and his head was pressed against the hard floor. But he screamed as the man sheathed himself inside him. There was no preparing, no making it easy or enjoyable. This was solely about stripping a man of all of his pride and dignity, reducing him below a human.

The younger Elric squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away as he tried to block out his brother's screams of pain and the Ishbalan's sickening moans.

"Look at them," the Ishbalan on his right whispered in his ear. "Look at how they move. Magical."

He wasn't sure what posessed him to do so, but he opened his eyes and looked. Tears welled up in his eyes as his gaze locked with his brother's. They were no longer vibrant and gold; now they were dull and wet and filled with pain.

He'd never felt anything like this pain. He could actually _feel _the thick and hard length of the man rapidly retreating and attacking him, tearing apart his insides with every thrust. His screams were replaced with pathetic whimpers as his body and mind became too exhausted to expend the energy needed to produce the shrill sound. Oh, if only he could fall into the darkness that sang out to him with such a sweet lullaby, but he couldn't. He would not leave his brother, the one person he had left in this life, alone and helpless with these men. He would not let them to this to him. It was his duty to protect his family and he was doing that by keeping Al away from feeling this pain.

With the last bit of energy in him, he cried out loudly as something exploded in him like a fire. He felt the man leave his body and let go of him; he sagged to the floor breathless and beyond the point of exhaustion. It wasn't over.

_"Fullmetal, forget it. They're gone. Going after them would be stupid and reckless," Mustang said gravely._

_"I have to try," Ed yelled in defiance, turning to leave._

_"I order you to stay, Fullmetal."_

_"Fuck you."_

_During the civilian escort, there was another attack, but the Ishbalans took things to an extreme level. Ed fought and tried to save the woman and her child, but they took them to who knows where. He had to save them._

_"Al, stay here."_

_"Where are you going, Brother?"_

_"To find them."_

_"No, I'm coming with you."_

_"Al, don't argue. Stay here."_

_"No."_

_Ed let out a howl of frustration and dropped the plea. If he had any hopes of finding that woman and her little girl, then he had no time to waste._

The defeated alchemist slumped over, his mind in a deep fog as he drifted in and out of darkness. He found it hard to breathe. He wasn't going to make it, he knew that. There was still one more bastard left to satisfy and he couldn't even see straight anymore. He'd lost the battle and already he was losing the war.

He groaned in protest as he felt hands grab his hips and the final Ishbalan pushed inside his slick entrance, a mix of blood and semen acting as a sickly relieving lubrication. He was actually glad that he had bleed and the other two men had released themselves inside them, because it made it so much easier to take.

_"Well, well, what do we have here?"_

_Ed opened his eyes, confusion immediately falling over him. He struggled to get free, but his wrists were crossed together so that he couldn't even use alchemy. His gaze searched frantically for Al, relieved to find him alive in the corner of the room._

_"A State Alchemist," a man with a cut cheek said, tugging at the silver chain of his pocket watch. "Now we get to see if this thing really works."_

_"Let us go," Ed demanded._

_The man snickered and turned to face the other Ishbalan in the room. Ed couldn't make out what they were saying, but when the Ishbalan turned around he had a syringe in his hand._

_"Let's play," he said. He jerked his head at the other man and Ed was grabbed, the sleeve of his jacket being torn away from his arm. The man approached him with the needle, but Ed was being held tightly. "This is something completely new from Xing. To use alchemy, you send energy through your body and the transmutation circle to create a complete circuit. This stops that. This interrupts that critical flow the moment it starts." Ed gasped as the sharp point was pushed into his arm and the liquid was sent into his bloodstream._

_"What about this one?" he heard the other Ishbalan ask of Al. The drug, or whatever the hell is was, made everything hazy and blurred._

_"N-no," he murmured, then darkness took over him._

Before the man inside him reached his delightful climax, Ed blacked out. He fell head first into the welcoming folds of darkness where there was not a pinch of pain. Everything was void and desolate.

_He woke minutes, maybe hours, or possibly days, later. He shot up, then eased himself back down as his mind whirled. He wasn't tied up as before and he was completely naked. As he looked at his arm he found a trail of dried blood running down from the injection site, which was black and swollen._

_Ed rubbed his forehead, then tried to stand again. Standing erect, he spotted the naked body of his brother on the ground. Despite the dizzying effects, he rushed to his side and cradled him in his arms while he coaxed him out of the darkness. Al was out cold and would stay that way for quite some time, he figured. He noted that they'd injected Al too._

_He eased his brother on the ground and sighed. What a mess. Then, remembering what that man had said about the shot, he clapped his hands and placed them on the cement floor. He felt a strange "rip" in his body and found that there was no alchemical reaction whatsoever._

_He leaned himself again the wall, shuddering as it gave him a cold bite. What had gone wrong? Well, the first mistake was leaving in the first place. The first mistake was not following that simple order from his superior. Following that, the second mistake was to think that woman and her child were still breathing. When they found the bodies, they were surprised in an ambush. There was no time to react. Then there was blackness._

"Ed? C'mon, Ed, wake up. Please, wake up," a broken voice pleaded as fingers tapped his cheek, the images from his dream playing eerily in his mind.

"Alphonse?" He opened his eyes and looked up at the face hovering over him in a daze. There was only one thing he could think about. "Did they hurt you?" he asked weakly, eyes sliding shut. He didn't have the strength to keep them open, but he wouldn't fall back into darkness without an answer.

"No, they didn't," he replied softly, a feeling a guilt hitting him as he looked down at his barely conscious kin. A tear fell from his cheek, finding home on Ed's. "I'm sorry, Ed. I should've stopped them. I..." He pulled the battered body closer to his own, feeling the stickiness on his legs.

_"What are we going to do, Ed? We can't use alchemy and w-"_

_"Quiet, we'll figure this out. Listen, I don't think we should tell them that we're brothers. They might use that against us. For now, you're just one of the civilians I was escorting, okay? And whatever happens...Al, whatever happens, I'm going to protect you. I won't let them hurt you. I-"_

_His words froze as the door opened and three men walked in. He fought against them, but was quickly overpowered. An hour later, he fell to the ground with his body bruised and broken and their laughs filling the air. They left as his mind closed off the world, but at least Al was untouched._

"Alphonse, I'm going to get us out of here, I swear. We're going to make it, just hang on," Ed said in a weak whisper, then allowed himself to slip into some much needed rest. He just hoped that would be a promise he could keep, because truthfully, he saw no way out.

* * *

**Hope it didn't get confusing with the kaprillion flashbacks and all... Oh, and I don't think I mentioned it, but the reason they're evacuating the people is so that the military can use the town for a base and incase there was a raid or war broke out. Soooo...yeah...**

**Anyways, please review!**

Return to Top


	2. Darkness

**There are some character switches from Roy to Ed throughout this (marked by rulers) and whatever happens in one sort of covers up what's happening in the other. Where it switches in the fic are things happening that I either don't think you should know or are things I want you to know later. It might stay a bit confusing until the next chapter or so when I'm planning to unveil a lot of stuff. Anyways, hope you enjoy reading!**

* * *

The raven-haired man sifted through the papers, scribbling his name where needed. One would think that even in such tragic times one wouldn't have to do such menial work, but reading papers and signing his name seemed to be the only thing he was good for.

He sighed deeply, running his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair. Not only were they being attacked by the Ishbalans here and there, they also had an enemy with a higher being: the sun. It was so damn hot, and the pounding rays of heat didn't seem to want to give up. To add to it, the tent he was in only circulated the heat, making it stuffy and unbearable.

Roy leaned back in his chair as he took a sip of water from his canteen. Over the past few days, he'd been having to act like nothing was wrong, but he was screaming on the inside. The Elrics had left four days ago and their youthful faces hadn't been seen around since then. He had a deep feeling in his gut that something wasn't quite right, that something had gone terribly wrong. However, he couldn't abandon his duties with all that was going on, so searching for the brothers was out of the question. Or was it? Wasn't protecting his own men, one even being a civilian, part of his duties? Wasn't ensuring their protection a part of his rank? They looked up to him, especially the younger of the two, he knew. He'd often wondered what the gold-eyed alchemist thought of him, whether he was despised or appreciated.

He felt a sharp pang hit his heart, then wondered if this was the pain a father would feel when his children were ill or in some sort of trouble. If this was how a father felt, if he really did see those two boys as something close to sons, then he could not and would not let this continue. He had to find them, no matter the costs and consequences that followed.

With a frustrated sigh, he shook his head, causing beads of sweat to fall from his face, and stood from his desk. He left his tent and headed straight for the highest ranking officer on the camp: Brigadier General Basque Gran the Ironblood Alchemist.

Two guarding soldiers parted the tent flap and stepped aside for him to enter. Immediately, Roy came to a salute.

"What is it, Flame? Can't you see I'm busy?" the man said in a grumble, eyeing the other alchemist.

"Brigadier General Gran, I come requesting temporary leave from my duties," Roy replied firmly, falling out of the salute despite not being called to do so.

"Your reasons?"

"Major Edward Elric and his younger brother left a few days ago on the terms of ensuring civilian protection. They have yet to return. I would like to be permitted to search for them."

"Denied."

"Wha- Why?"

"Are you questioning my decisions, _Colonel _Mustang?"

"Quite frankly, I am. They're just boys, one of them is a civilian, and Fullmetal falls under my immediate jurisdiction here. He's _my _subordinate."

"Leaving this camp was Fullmetal's choice. If he's dead, then that's because of him or maybe of you. Since he does fall under your immediate jurisdiction, as you said, then he would have had to get permission from you to leave. Did you let him go? If anything, his disappearance falls on your shoulders as you are his incompetent leader."

Roy chewed on his bottom lip, stopping himself from blurting out something that would stick him in boiling water. Ah, screw it!

"It's quite funny you should say that, Brigadier General," the raven-haired man said coolly, masking the boiling anger inside him that was about to spill over. "To answer your question, I ordered him to stay, but do you know what he said to me? Well, it's the same thing I'm going to tell you, and it goes like this: Fuck you."

He turned away from the man in the same manner Ed had done him countless times before. He didn't have a single feeling of regret for his words, and he would deal with the consequences of his actions when he returned with the Elrics.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye, round up some men. We're going on a hunt," he called out the moment he stepped out of the tent and into the blazing sun.

* * *

A small whimper fell off his busted lips as another fist slammed against his cheek. There was a heavy metallic taste on his tongue and he could feel the fresh blood trickle from his forehead onto his lips, adding to the crimson pool in his mouth. He could no longer see out of his left eye, swollen shut from abuse, and his right was following as blood fell into the gold disk. Pain racked his entire body with every breath he took, and he was certain he had a broken or cracked rib. It sure felt like it.

He was glad, though, that he'd been worked so far into exhaustion. By now, his mind was too tired, too run down, to comprehend every bit of pain, dulling majority of it to half what it used to be. But, oh, what he wouldn't give just to have one peaceful night of sleep. And something hot to eat and cool to drink.

The only thing that kept him going was one thought, one simple line that ran itself through his hazy mind: _'I'll wake up any minute now.' _Oddly enough, to him, enduring this torture was a test. It was his mind's way of testing how much he could withstand, testing his body's limitations. But in the very back of his mind, he knew that he was being carried in the arms of denial, because if this was a dream, then he would be able to give in to the dark temptations of eternal sleep without a worry. Right now, that wouldn't be such a bad thing for him, but with his younger brother, his only family, he had to take the pain and hold out as long as he could for him. He would not leave his brother alone with these people, alone to feel such horrific pain.

Ed fell to his knees, momentarily throwing away the strong front. He was really at an end, but as he gave a small glance at his younger brother, his heart lightened at seeing him unscathed. The Ishbalans hadn't gone after Al since he'd given them his body as payment. It appeared that they weren't satisfied, so when they burst into the cell and attacked him, forcing him out of his much needed sleep, Ed was forced to continue paying for his brother's protection. He just hoped they wouldn't _take_ him as they had last time. A major beating like the one they'd just given him should have been enough, but he was wrong. Dead wrong.

The weary blond gave as much of a fight as he could when he felt calloused fingers brush against his tender cheek and trail under his chin, but his arms were like jelly, so there was little he could do as his head was tilted in all directions. He could feel red eyes examining his bruised face, swollen eyes, and split lips. When the fingers retreated from under his chin, he let his head fall. He knew he must look more than pathetic. He was thankful there was nothing to reflect his appearance for him to see his body and face.

A terrible silence filled the air and he thought it was over, but his luck was too shitty for that to be true. He was knocked to the ground as the Ishbalan with the Glasgow smile struck him. He stayed on the cold floor motionless, not daring to move an inch. He felt the Ishbalan come close to him and saw through his failing eye the man raise his fist to strike again. The dark-skinned man seemed frozen as he stayed in that position for quite some time, then Ed realized that he must have been thinking about something. Whatever was building up in the man's mind didn't matter to him, he was just glad for the respite and hoped the Ishbalan would continue along his train of thought for a few minutes longer.

* * *

"Alright, listen up," he called out, his voice carrying to the small troop that would assist him in the search, "I want no rock left unturned. Our objective is to retrieve Major Edward Elric and his younger brother, Alphonse. Any objections, get over them. Let's head out."

Mustang motioned with his hand and the group of eight soldiers and his trusted sobordinates began to leave the camp.

"Hold it, Flame," a voice barked from behind. Roy froze, not caring how much disrespect he was displaying by not immediately turning to face and salute the higher ranking officer. That didn't matter though as a large hand grabbed his forearm tightly and forced him around. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Get back to your duties at once, Colonel. Now!" The hand on his arm tightened considerably, but he remained calm and collected.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot do that," he said.

"You're a fool. A damn fool! Don't you realize what you're getting yourself into? That brat is already dead and you know it. Going off like you're in some dream to find him will get yourself and your men killed for no cause. We're close to war, Colonel, and those bastards won't spare a soul, especially now that they've found themselves an ally."

"Ally? What are you talking about? The Ishbalans don't have an ally," Roy said, mind suddenly whirling with the situation.

"They do, and things are a lot worse than they appear," Gran said gravely, then threw Roy's arm out of his grip. "You're a fool to go and the consequences for your absence will be severe."

* * *

How wonderful. The darkness he found himself swimming deeper into was such a grand relief and so very inviting. The mental image of himself swam further away from the lighted shore of awareness with long strokes, arm following arm. He was so close, so very close, but a large hand grabbed him and pulled him back to the light.

Ed opened his eyes in a daze, taking a few moments to comprehend his surroundings. As his good eye glanced around, he found that he was on his knees again and the Ishbalan had his fingers tangled in his long hair. The man pulled at the grimy locks, forcing his head back so their gazes met. The red-eyed man smiled, his long scar disappearing on the other side of his face to create an unsymmetrical grin. Ed decided quickly that he didn't like that smile and what he knew it meant.

Everything was so hazy and blurred, so undefined. He thought he could hear voices, but they were such a jumble that recognition of words were beyond him. He did, however, recognize his brother's voice. It sounded strange to his ears, not the normal firm voice that seemed to mimic his own from time to time. The voice was faltering, waving up and down, and he realized that his brother was begging. But why? Why was Alphonse begging? As he focused his entire mind on that familiar voice, he understood that Al was begging because he couldn't do it himself. Al was begging for him.

A sound echoed in his mind, but he had no clue what it was. Then, he felt something touch his mouth and it pressed harder and harder until he parted his abused lips. He felt it move deep inside his mouth and what he recognized as a moan fill the air. It was then that he understood.

As the man slowly moved his hips back, removing his firm length from his aching mouth, Ed saw that it held a red sheen. It took him longer than he would've liked to figure out that it was blood, his blood, that coated the velvety head and long shaft. His mouth had collected a pool of blood from the dripping gashes on his forehead and cheeks and from his busted lips and possibly from a missing tooth or cut gums.

The grinning Ishbalan pressed himself back in the crimson cavern, intent on getting that pleasure that he wanted. A low chuckle came from the back of the man's throat, followed by the commands for his captive to suck.

Ed did as he was told for fear of them going after his brother if he didn't obey. It was something he'd never done before and as it throbbed and grew in his mouth, pressing against the back if his throat, he fought with every last vestige of energy left to keep from vomiting.

"You're terrible at this," the man muttered, grabbing the blond's head to keep him still as he quickly thrust his hips.

* * *

"Sir, are you sure about this?"

"I...Riza," he said, the name feeling so foreign on his tongue, "I honestly don't know, but I can't keep this up not knowing what's happened to them. I have a terrible feeling, and I do hope I'm wrong, that something bad has happened to them. But listen, you don't have to come along. This could very well be considered a suicide mission and I don't -"

"I'm going," she said with a nod. "I care about those boys just as much as you do. Besides, I always said I would stay with you until the end."

He smiled softly, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go."

With those words, they set off on the quest to find the Elric brothers, but as the camp became a small dot on the horizon, he began to wonder how true his superior's words had been. The Ishbalans with _them_? It was unheard of!

* * *

"Swallow it," the man said in an odd whisper as he stroked the sweat-dampened hair of the blond.

Ed let the white sin slide down his throat. Revolting. He could feel it drop in his stomach and he suddenly felt very nauseous. He forced the lump of bile and acid that was rising up to fall back down where it belonged, not daring to do such a thing in their presence.

The taste of blood and semen swam over his taste buds, and it was then that he remembered the other two Ishbalans in the room. They were watching from the corner of the room, doing their job by keeping Alphonse back. Just like last time, he knew he would be forced to please these two men.

His thoughts of having to go through something like that again were laid to rest as he was pulled to his feet by the Glasgow smile Ishbalan. He was surprised that his legs could move and that he could walk as he was led to the door by his hair.

"Wh-where..."

The Ishbalan opened the door, Ed not noticing if by key or some secret code, and he was pushed on the other side of the cell. Confusion made its home quick in his mind as he fought to understand what was going on, the cell that held his brother becoming more distant with every stumbling step. He wished he had the strength to fight, because he sure as hell would have fought to stay with his younger sibling. He just hoped that the steel-eyed brunet would remain untouched and safe without him there.

He slowly looked around him with his right eye, his left still tightly swollen shut, and was appalled at the things he saw. There were other people there, people like him: naked, beaten, some driven to insanity as they tore at their skin and eyes, some so malnourished and starved that he could make out every rib. But these prisoners all had cells that had bars for walls, whereas his own was a windowless room. He assumed because he was an alchemist. Or maybe the reason was more sinister than that.

As his mind told him what was what and who was who, he began to notice that the free people who they passed were on somewhat friendly terms with the Ishbalans, especially the one he was being led by. His mind wasn't able to tell him who these unfamiliar people were before he was pushed into a room and forced down in a chair that sat in front of a table.

Without a flicker of hesitation, a very dumb move, he greedily tucked into the plate of old food that was set in front of him by some other red-eyed man. It was simply a small loaf of stale bread, gritty with sand, and a pathetic pile of vegetables. He ate the plate clean, then chased it down with large gulps of water.

So incredibly stupid!

He polished off the water, then happened to look down the glass to see flecks of black and purple swimming in the bottom. The glass dropped from his hand, shattering to a thousand fine slivers. He fell out of the chair and on the broken glass, once again swimming in the ocean of welcoming black.

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed reading!**

**So...I have a feeling that this fic might be a lot longer than what I was expecting, which was 3-5 chapters.**

**Anyways, comments are greatly appreciated! **


	3. Whispers

**So...this chapter is kinda boring, I guess, but some key things happen here.  
Anyways, please read and review!**

* * *

Cold. Deep and numbing cold. It dug and prodded its way into his bones, pinching and stabbing at his insides in a torturous way. He opened his eyes, no longer able to withstand the shivers and chills.

Ed looked down at his body, blue and numb. He was in a small basin that was filled with melting ice and water. No wonder why he was so cold. His shaking hands gripped at the metal sides of the tub as he fought to lift himself up, but his entire body was numb, making the task a fierce struggle. With the limited control of his limbs, he rolled out of the tub and hit the hard floor with a groan. Well, at least he was out of there, but why was he even buried in the ice in the first place?

He curled up on the concrete floor in an attempt to gain body heat and rubbed his fingers together, slowly relinquishing the blue tint and the numbing feeling. As he willed the cold away from his bones, he thought of two possible reasons why they had placed him there: 1) a form of torture, or 2) a way to heal his body, making all swelling disappear. They both made sense to him, because his joints protested with pain to the cold, but the swelling in his eye was gone and he could see clearly from it.

A few minutes of rubbing life back into his stiff being revitalized his muscles and joints until he was able to ease himself onto his feet. Dizziness hit him like a cruel slap, but he fought to maintain his balance. Whatever they had put in that glass of water must have still been working in his system. He assumed it was just some type of sedative as he was still quite groggy and foggy-minded.

Ed looked around the room, a dim light hung from the very center of the ceiling to allow him to see his full surroundings. The room was very small as he could almost touch both walls when he stretched his arms out, though the room was a lot longer than it was wide. He understood that this room had more than likely been used for some type of torture as he spotted a splatter of dried blood on the base of each wall and even some of the crimson spray on the ceiling above. If those walls could talk, he wondered what stories they would tell him. What horrific deeds had taken place within the small room? He decided that he didn't really want to know as he saw fresher, brighter blood on one of the walls. Whoever had been in the room before him hadn't left the room alive.

As he stood under the dim light, he felt like a slab of thawing meat. The very core of his body, inside and out, was still a harsh cold, but the shocking bite from the ice did have a bonus to it. Like taking a cold shower in the morning, he felt so very energetic, a lot better than he had for days, and judging by the way he felt, he guessed he hadn't been in the ice for longer than fifteen minutes, if that. So, in an attempt to get his body temperature back to normal, he bounced on his feet, much like a boxer would do before a match. The simple action created heat for his body that shivering hadn't been able to do, successfully driving away the numbness and cold. Oh, when those bastards came back, he would definitely give them a shock. He felt just like his old self again, defiant and ready to fight. He was going to get Al and get away; he had a chance now with this once forgotten energy coursing through his veins.

He smiled to himself at the thought of victory. They'd really screwed up by putting him in that tub of ice and water and he would punish them for their foolish mistakes.

Ed walked to the door, running his fingers over the cold surface. It was thick steel and there was no way he could break through it. He wondered though...They'd given him a shot that halted his alchemical abilities, but surely it would have worn off by now...

As the thought dawned on him, he clapped his hands and pressed them against the steel door. Everything weighed on whether this worked or not. Plan A: If it did, then Al could use alchemy too and they'd both be able to get away. Plan B: If it didn't, then...well, he would just have to kick some ass and hope for the best.

Time stopped as he stood there in dismay. No reaction, not even the smallest blue spark of a reaction. Whatever they'd injected him with was still coursing in his blood, putting a gap in any alchemical process before a reaction could occur in the circuit.

"Shit," he muttered, angrily stepping back from the door. He placed his back against the wall, sliding down its grim surface until he was sitting on the ground. He pulled his knees up to his chest, keeping what he had of his body warmth to only him and reserving his energy, allowing it to grow. He would just have to wait and he was really too impatient for that, but maybe waiting would pay off in the end, when the time came for him to act. He dozed lightly as he waited, minutes piling up into hours.

The thick door flew open and his Ishbalan buddy walked in. It was just him with his long grin, dark skin, and red eyes. Ed let him get close, feigning weakness as the man stepped forward. The Ishbalan grabbed his grin in his fingers, tilting his head up for their gazes to meet. Ed knew that his gold eyes were no longer dull with fatigue and pain, but were now bright and lustrous. He was brimming with energy and awareness, mind processing thoughts and actions faster than ever.

"You're pathetic," the man said, scrunching up his nose in his disgust. "Why are you so hopeful? Do you honestly think you're going to leave this place alive, if at all?" Ed stared defiantly into the man's red eyes, no longer faking weakness. "Answer me."

"Yes." Ed chased after the words with a flying right fist, jamming it into the man's jaw. Momentarily, he wished he had automail again to really do some damage.

The Ishbalan stumbled back from the unexpected force of the blow. He wasn't able to recover in time as Ed connected another fist and another until the man was against the wall. The red-eyed man was temporarily paralytic from the blows, so Ed took advantage of the opportunity. He bolted, heading with tremendous speed for the door; it was cracked open, because the man went straight for Ed, most likely not expecting any resistance from the blond.

Ed flung the door open, making it crash against the wall as it swung, only missing the dazed Ishbalan by a mere inch. The determined blond stood in the long hallway, head darting left and right to make a decision in which way to go. He needed to get to Al, but he had no clue where to go. He was wasting time, too much precious time, so he went left, racing down the hallway in a blur.

As he ran, being pushed forward by pure adrenaline, he could hear the Ishbalan's heavy footsteps chasing after him in a rhythmic pounding. He ran past the many cells of prisoners like him and he desperately wanted to stop to help them, but there was no time. Ed pressed forward, putting all strength in his fast strides, coming closer and closer to the end of the race. Or so he hoped. He hoped his brother would be close by. But what if he wasn't? What if he had gone the wrong way? Or what if Alphonse had been killed in his absence?

The thought hit him like a cold slap, slowing his run. He could hear the man gaining speed on him as he yelled curses and threats. He even thought he could feel the man's warm breath against the back of his neck, his hand reaching out to grab his trailing locks. But as he took another left, familiarity jumped to him. He remembered the hallway and could see the cell that held his brother at the very end of the long stretch. New determination coursed through him and pushed harder, going faster than he'd ever gone before. Like a light at the end of a dark tunnel, he was so close. So very close.

_'Almost...'_

The light of his goal grew as he drew closer to the end, but the light disappeared in an eclipse. He came to a stumbling halt as a massive figure jumped in front of him, grabbing him by his forearms with a bruising force. Ed struggled and tried to squirm his way out of the man's tight grip, but to no avail did his efforts pay off.

"Let me go!" he shrieked, kicking his legs and trying to throw his fists. His front was pressed tightly against the strange man's own front and he could feel a pair of cold hands wrap around his throat from behind, squeezing his neck. He recognized those hands, remembering them touching his body all over in the most heinous of fashions. They were the hands of the Ishbalan who had _taken_ him, stripped him of his innocence and virtue.

Breathing became a struggle and keeping conscious became a battle. The world began to fade and darkness began to reach out to him. His attempts of escape were officially thwarted as he knew nothing but darkness.

Damn.

Feeling fingers tap his cheek, Ed opened his eyes in a daze. A moan of confusion fell from his lips as he looked around the unfamiliar room. He tried to move, but found that he was securely strapped to a chair.

"Subject 10-0310. Experiment: Devil's Whisper."

There were people in the room, but only one of them was Ishbalan. The person who'd spoken the mysteriously words had yellow-ish skin and black eyes and hair. The person also had something pointed in his hands, something that set Ed's heart racing. It was a syringe and the person's words then made sense. Human experimentation.

Ed jerked his hands and feet in a desperate attempt for escape, but the person approached him with the needle. Ed saw that it was a woman from the delicate jawline and thin neck. She smiled a sadistic smile as she stepped toward him, baring the needle like a weapon.

"N-no, don't," he found himself saying as the sharp point got closer to his flesh. "Get away from me!"

The woman said something foreign with a tone of annoyance, apparently snapping an order at a man nearby. The man, who looked like the woman, grabbed his right arm, holding it still. He winced as the needle was driven into his skin and the liquid inside was pushed into his bloodstream.

A quiver went past his trembling lips as his body shook. A heavy fog settled over his mind, carrying to his vision and even the rest of his sense. He couldn't think, see, feel, smell, taste, or talk. His body just shook uncontrollably.

The world became forgotten as the drug took hold of his mind and body. It was distant, like leaves rustling in the wind, but he would hear it invade his mind. That horrific sensation was the only feeling that came to him as the liquid pumped through his entire being. It was dark and even felt evil. He wanted to scream as the feeling grew in his head, expanding throughout his body, but no definite sound would fall from his lips.

He was trapped in the feeling, drowning in it. He hadn't even been aware of being touched, being carried away from the room to somewhere else.

Ed laid on the cold floor, body still shaking as the dark feeling grew stronger inside him. Slowly, he could feel the coldness of the floor bathe his body and all of his senses returned to him. He wished it hadn't. The moment everything came rushing back to him, it happened. The darkness, the evilness, inside him was strong now; he could feel its power.

_It's over. He belongs to me now._

"Wh-what? Who said that? What do you mean?"

_I've taken him away._

"Who? Who's been taken away?"

_Your dearest Alphonse, of course. Face it. You've failed him as a brother._

"N-no, you're wrong. I-I..."

_What a pathetic whelp. And to think you call yourself a man._

"Shut up," Ed pleaded. The darkness had a voice that was rough and raspy, low and menacing. If the devil was real, then Ed knew it was him who was whispering to him.

_I'll tell you how it'll end, Edward. In blood. Sadness. Hatred. Soon, very soon, you'll belong to me for what you will do._

"Stop it!" Ed grabbed his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

_Don't waste your time in thinking you can save him. He's already broken._

"Liar!"

_I watched, smiling and laughing, as they played with him. He enjoyed it, Edward. He moaned and begged for more._

"Stop talking," Ed yelled, shaking his head.

_He was such a greedy bastard. He couldn't get enough. If only you could have been there to watch._

Ed's eyes darted to the vertical bars of the cell where that woman was scribbling down something from the other side. He grabbed the bars, screaming at the woman, "Make him stop! Please! Make him stop talking!"

_You know you would've enjoyed to see such a thing too. Don't lie to yourself. You even enjoyed it when they were inside you. What a disgrace._

"Shut up! Shut up!" he screeched, stumbling back from the bars as he pulled at his hair. "That's not true! It's not!"

_Oh, but it is. I am you. I know your every thought and memory, your darkest desires._

"No..." He sank to his knees, curling up in a tight ball.

_You're in so much pain. You're breaking too. How much longer do you think you can last in this place? Answer me._

"I don't...I don't know..."

_You don't need to live any longer. He took his own life, Edward._

"Why? Why did he..."

_He was ashamed at enjoying such a tragedy. Ashamed that your name escaped his lips._

Ed's breathing hitched at the words. Could the whispered words be true?

_There's no point to your existence. End it. If you come to me now, I'll make it easy for you. You won't suffer like all the others._

"No!" Ed slammed his forehead against the hard floor, trying to drive the dark voice out of his mind. He screamed the simple word repeatedly as he slammed his head against the cold surface, the whispers still speaking to him about the dark temptation of suicide.

The skin of his forehead split open to release a river of bright blood. The whispers continued, so he continued screaming and banging his head against the floor. But then, he was grabbed by someone and felt something pinch his arm. He relaxed.

_We'll be meeting again, Edward. Good bye._

Darkness.

It was becoming a pattern: Light, Darkness, Light, Darkness. He was getting tired of it.

He opened his eyes, feeling a sharp pain on his arm and forehead. He looked at his bound limb to find that he'd been marked with black ink next to the injection site: 10-0310. He tossed the pain aside, thankful that his mind was completely his again. They must've have sedated him to keep from killing himself. He hadn't realized it until then, but that was what he had tried to do, despite not wanting to. No, although he didn't want to, his body did. His body had acted against him and taken a life of its own. Or maybe it was Him who had taken control of his body? Either way, he hoped it would never happen again.

"Edward Elric the Fullmetal Alchemist."

At the mention of his name, Ed's head shot up to meet the gaze of the Ishbalan with the Glasgow smile, the slant-eyed woman standing behind him. How the hell did he know his name?

"I never thought we'd have someone so well-known here." The man laughed. "No matter how much thought I put into it, how you were captured eludes me."

"What do you want with me?"

"You're going to help us. You see, we've been trying to figure out how to get pass your military's strength in arms and alchemy. We're close. Very close to an solution."

"What are you talking about?"

"How was it? Did He talk to you? What did He tell you? Terrible thing, right? It's a drug we've created. If I could pronounce its technical name, I would tell you, but for simplicity's sake, everyone here calls it Devil's Whisper. It really screws up your mind. If such a thing was released into say...a city's water supply, think of the damage. Utter chaos. Left and right, people would be jumping from buildings and blowing their brains out. That would really put a crutch on your government, wouldn't it?"

"Y-you can't be serious. What kind of monster..."

"Monster? We're not monsters, kid. We merely want you bastards to feel what we've felt. The pain, the discrimination. My people have been driven from their land, countless slaughtered. I had a family once, a beautiful wife and three strong sons. Do you know what happened to them? They were drowned in an ocean of fire by one of you alchemists."

"You're so dumb," Ed said with a laugh. "That same alchemist is on his way. He's coming here to save me and he's not alone. All of you will perish."

"Save it, Elric. We already know. We spotted a small group of soldiers not too far from here, but haven't you noticed something? It's always cold in here, isn't it? And plus, have you seen a ray of sunlight since you've been here?"

Ed thought about it. He was right. But he gave a mental sigh of relief at the man's words; Roy was coming for him. There was still a chance that he could be saved, him and Al both.

"We're a good twenty or so feet under the ground. Catacombs for the dead. But enough of that," the Ishbalan said, then made a gesture with his hands. The woman from before stepped forward.

"Subject 10-0310. Second experiment: Devil's Whisper," she said, her voice holding a heavy accent.

"No, not again," Ed pleaded with a gasp as he spotted the needle in the woman's hand. "Please, not again."

"Now, now, don't be such a child. We still need to test and refine this drug or else the entire plan could go wrong. And you wouldn't want that to happen, would you?" the Ishbalan man said, smiling.

_Hello, Edward._

* * *

**Devil's Whisper increases that hormone or chemical that makes you think more about suicide, just to make that clear. So, this fic is moving a lot slower than I had originally anticipated, but whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is beyond me.**

**Anyways, thanks for all of the lovely comments so far!  
Please review! :)**

**And if anyone can figure out where 10-0310 is from, then you get a ginormous cookie!  
Hint: It is FMA related**

**Also, if anyone has a better summary than mine, please let me know!**


	4. Failure

**Sorry for the long wait on the update. Again, this fic is moving so much slower than I had originally anticipated, so this chapter is kind of boring; it didn't go where I had planned on it to go. I find it to be kind of lacking and the ending sort of falls apart. Anyways, I had a lot of technical problems with this chapter, but I'm not going to go into that. Also, there are probably a lot of spelling and grammatical errors throughout this. Please just ignore it until I can run through this chapter and weed them out (was distracted while writing).**

**Oh, and yes, that is the number in Ed's pocket watch. A lot of you got a ginormous cookie :)**

* * *

A voice, so garbled that the vowels couldn't be distinguished from the consonants to form the separate words of the simple sentence, filled his hazy mind. Following the words came a pinch at his arm. He was surprised that he'd gotten used to the sharp pain; now it felt like nothing more than a half-hearted pinch. But no matter how many times they pushed that vile substance into his blood, he knew he would never get used to the dark whispers that followed.

The past eight times they had injected him with the drug they called Devil's Whisper, the menacing voice came immediately afterwards, filling his head with his supposed failures and promises of a sweet afterlife done by his own hand. Despite how foggy his mind was during the moments under the drug's influence, he knew he was desperate every single time to end it all; he knew that he had tried, obviously without any success, to take his own life because the voice told him that he had nothing more to live for now that Alphonse was dead.

Because of his honest attempts, they kept him under constant surveillance and kept him tightly bound. Even now they suspended in the air, his feet a good inch off the ground. Hanging from the ceiling was a long rod that resembled a fishing hook, and around his wrists was a metal chain. Due to their efforts to keep him alive, Ed knew that they still needed him and could not risk letting him in a position where he would be able to cause harm to himself.

But as he waited for the drug to seize his mind, time pressed on. Unlike the many times before, there was no voice, and Ed had a thought that maybe they hadn't injected him with the familiar drug this time. Maybe they'd given him something different, something that would take him away from the sorry world he was in and carry him away somewhere far.

He felt the beginnings of a hearty laugh swirl in the pit of his stomach at such a ludicrous thought. That would be entirely too kind of them.

He knew how his captors worked now. They didn't show mercy, and they enjoyed watching him and every sorry son of a bitch in their hands writhe in pain and shrink away in themselves, cracking the glass of sanity. No, there would be no compassion from these people.

The garbled voice he had heard before feeling the pinch of a needle breaking his skin filled the air again.

"-ke up. You have some time," the voice said. Time? What the hell did that mean? Time until what?

Ed forced his eyes open to see what the person was talking about. He immediately recognized the owner of the voice as the Ishbalan with the Glasgow smile. It seemed that anything that had to do with the blond also had to do with this particular man.

The Ishbalan, whose name Ed had never heard spoken, set the syringe on a nearby table, and Ed noticed that they were the only two in the room. The brown-skinned man turned to face the blond, giving him a long look as his red eyes examined his body. The blood rushed up to Ed's cheeks as he saw the man's eyes rest on one particular spot of his physical being, a spot he desperately wanted to cover. In fact, wearing a pair of pants, or even boxers, would probably lift his spirits considerably.

"Fifteen to thirty minutes, I think," the Ishbalan said, breaking his eyes away from the young alchemist to occupy an empty chair against the wall.

Despite being in one of the worst situations possible, Ed was still Ed, and he often fought them in his own little ways.

His eyes, now a tarnished gold, locked with the man's crimson eyes in sheer rebellion. He was determined to show the Ishbalan that he was not yet broken, that he still held a will to fight and live. Ed knew that this man in particular hated how hopeful he was at escaping, but Ed loved to see how much it would take before the man snapped and struck him in a fury. No matter how exhausted he was, he always threw back his head after being slapped for his insolence and laughed in the victory of knowing he had annoyed the false-grinning Ishbalan.

Much to the rebellious blond's dismay, the Ishbalan simply shrugged and repeated what he had said before. "Fifteen to thirty minutes. You have some time, so I suggest you use it wisely."

"What are you talking about?" Ed snapped, clipping his words with a rude sharpness.

"It's strange how it works, but the bigger the dosage, the longer it takes to start working. I've tripled your normal dose of Devil's Whisper."

"T-tripled?" Ed's voice fell to a whisper and his head dropped as his eyes widened. If the dosage was bigger, then would the effect be bigger too?

"I'm actually quite surprised by you," the Ishbalan said, making Ed's gaze rise to stare at him. "You're a real rarity in this place. You see, most people we bring here immediately begin to ask questions as soon as they see someone who might have answers. They plead and beg. Really quite pathetic. You, on the other hand, haven't really given in to the constant questioning. Between questions and begging, you've really only done the latter."

Ed kept his eyes fixated on the man, trying wildly to figure out what he was getting out with his spill. There had to be some point to it.

"You're not as annoying as all the others I've had to watch, so I would like to reward you. You have a bit of time before you lose yourself to _him_, so I am going to allow to ask whatever questions are swirling in your small brain and I will answer all of them honestly."

The blond carefully considered the Ishbalan's words. He knew it would be foolish to think that there wasn't some sort of catch, some secret deal, but what was the harm in asking a question or two? Besides, there was something he absolutely needed to know.

"There is something I would like to ask," he began, voice trailing away as he thought of how he should ask or if he should ask at all.

"Ask away, Elric."

"The boy I was brought here with, is he still alive?"

The dark whisper in his head always told him that his younger brother, Alphonse, was dead. And after only the second time of hearing the harsh voice, his mind adopted the whispered words as a part of his reality, as the truth.

"What is your relationship with him?" the Ishbalan asked. "You answer me that and I will answer your question."

"He's...There's no relation."

"Don't lie to me," the red-eyed man spat. "If he was no one to you, then why did you take all of his pain? You fought for him. You gave your body to me to spare his. Why would you do that if there was no strong bond between you?"

"He's just kid," Ed said quickly. "No kid should have to go through something like that."

"But are you not just a kid yourself? You can hardly be called an adult in a numerical sense. No more than eighteen."

Ed watched as the Ishbalan rose to his feet and approached him with long strides. He flinched slightly as an icy cold hand pinched his sides where a countless number of gashes, cuts, and bruises decorated his skin. His breath caught in his throat as the man's hand ghosted to the center of his abdomen, then gradually descended along the span of abused skin.

"Yes, no more than eighteen," he murmured as he wrapped his cold fingers over the blond's flaccid length. The Ishbalan tightened his fingers around his captive's manhood, earning a very audible gasp.

Ed hadn't been touched in such an ill manner as that since he'd been separated from his brother. But as the man's fingers ran along his manhood, he found himself screaming in his mind for his body not to react to the intense strokes.

"I'll stop if you tell me who that boy is," the red-eyed man said as he picked up his pace along the blond's shaft, smirking as he felt it twitch slightly in his hand. He knew the teen was struggling to keep his body where he wanted it, and knowing that he was losing that battle of control made him smile.

He was desperate for the touches to stop, especially when he felt the free hand trail over his hip until he felt a long finger touch his crack. The finger moved down to trace the natural engraving, and then slipped between the firm cheeks of the youth. Ed felt he would die if his body was violated again; the shame and guilt that followed after the horrendous act against his body was unbearable. He couldn't let it happen again. Never again.

"He's my brother," he blurted out quickly, relieved that the man's hand left his back before he had to experience that painful penetration.

"Really? I thought the Elric brothers were a duo," the dark-skinned man said.

"It's just me and him," Ed said softly, feeling terribly ashamed for giving away such momentous information to his enemy.

"But I thought the younger Elric was trapped in a suit of armor. The one who say is your brother is complete flesh and bone."

"He was. I fixed us."

"Oh, that would explain why your automail is no longer a part of you. I kept thinking that you two were closely related, cousins at the most, because the armor part re-"

"I don't care about that," Ed interrupted through clenched teeth, eyeing the man with a dangerous glare. "I answered your question, now answer mine. Is he alive? My brother, is he alive?"

"What makes you think otherwise?"

"Stop it! Stop asking questions and answer mine, damn it!"

"Oh, I understand. _He _must have told you that your brother was dead. Did the same thing to me, he did." Catching the confused expression on the blond's face, the man decided to elaborate. "It was a complete accident. The last person we tested Devil's Whisper on broke free of her bonds and stabbed me with a full syringe. That was three years ago and I can still remember the wretched feeling that coursed through me for what felt like hours. I can still remember every word that was whispered in my head. It's much more fun to watch someone suffer than to suffer yourself, I've decided. I . . ."

Ed hung his head, tuning out the man's words as he realized he wasn't going to find out if his brother was okay for quite some time, if at all.

As the Ishbalan chatted on about his experience with Devil's Whisper, Ed felt the drug running through his veins begin to take hold of his mind. He felt the darkness, thick like mud, cloud his thoughts and senses. Pain hit him like a cruel slap as his body lit up in an unbearable heat. His head tossed back and eyes screwed shut in response.

"Why me?" he asked through his gritted teeth.

"Why not you?" the red-eyed man wittingly replied. He smiled as he took his seat against the wall, grabbing a clipboard off the nearby table as he went. He scribbled down the blond's every word, his pleas and screams for the voice to hush. He wrote down in fine detail how the teen's body moved and squirmed as if he were being prodded by an unseen hot iron. He smiled as he wrote, because he truly enjoyed watching someone suffer instead of suffering himself.

* * *

The full moon was high in the sky, giving the land ahead a silver tone that had been gold hours before. He sighed deeply as he pulled his knees up to his chest for extra warmth. The days were hellishly hot, but the nights chilled his bones. If his goal wasn't so important, then he would have called it all off days ago. It seemed hopeless as of now. They'd been trudging over dry, sun-cracked soil for nearly a week and he knew that everyone in the small troop was beginning to grow restless and weary. He knew it wouldn't be long before he would have to call the search off.

For once in his life, he hadn't a clue what to do. He could feel that they were close, so very close to finding the brothers, but there hadn't been a single sign of them since they'd left camp. He _knew _they were close, almost as if they were standing over the clues and secrets to the brothers' disappearance.

"What happened to you two?" he murmured, pressing his forehead against his knees.

"Colonel?"

Roy raised his head at the soft voice. A hand placed itself on his back in a comforting manner, then there was a bit of shuffling next to him. He turned his black eyes to the woman and smiled a humorless smile.

"Riza, do you think this is hopeless?" he asked, voice hardly more than a whisper.

The blonde gazed out at the silver disk in the sky. Her answer was in her silence.

"So it is," Roy muttered, then turned his gaze to stare at the bright moon. He felt his heart snap in two as he admitted to himself that the search would not have the desired results.

He'd never been one to give up so easily, but he could feel the small flicker of hope dimming in his heart. As time stretched forward, he knew that the fire, once bright and intense, was dying away. The cold hand of despair and ruin clawed at his mind and soul, teasing him with words that there was still hope when he already knew there was none. The Elric brothers were dead and no matter how many times he told himself otherwise, he knew that was the harsh truth. They were dead, and there was no telling where their lifeless bodies were in the vast landscape of their surroundings. There was no point in searching for them any longer.

"I guess," he began, "it's time to call this whole thing off and get back to camp."

Riza said nothing, but as he turned his gaze upon her once more, her face caressed in the stunning light, he knew that she was just as torn as he was. They both wanted to believe that the boys were somewhere safe and sound, just within reach, but the heavy feeling that was pitted in their stomachs told them that all was not well with the Elrics. And more often than not, that feeling was the unspoken truth.

The raven-haired man ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. Until the day he died he would wonder what exactly had happened to Edward and Alphonse Elric, and every day for the rest of his life he would feel the heart-wrenching pains of failure. He had failed the brothers as their leader, as an adult, as a role model, but above all, as the only person who represented a father to them. He'd failed and that knowledge would follow him for the rest of his life like his own little disease.

"We'll rest tonight and head back at daybreak," Roy said to his most loyal of subordinates.

Riza Hawkeye nodded, her gaze still fixed on the fairytale moon, and Roy Mustang suppressed the urge to let his own eyes shine wetly in the moonlight as hers were.

* * *

A tortured howl echoed off the stone walls and the chain between his wrists clanked against the metal hook he was hanging from. His body tensed, blue veins protruding from his skin and sweat trickling down his body, as he felt pain surge up and down his body. Sharp claws and pointed teeth lashed out on his skin, driving screams from his throat. Although he could feel the intrusion of long fingernails and fangs breaking his skin, his body showed no new signs of abuse. In his mind's eye, he saw himself dripping with fresh blood as the monster attacked him over and over, all the while making sure to remind him of his failures and sins.

Ed let loose a wail of curses as the monster's weapons dug so deep into his body and in the most effective of places. By now he was dressed in nothing more than a sheet of liquid crimson. His ability to breathe escaped him, and he fell into an eternal blackness.

In the blackness, there was a strange sensation against his heels. If he was dead, then why was he still able to feel?

Ed forced his eyes open to find that his death was only an imagination brought on by the intensity of the drug. He was being dragged, his feet rubbing against the coarse floor as he was pulled away. But where was he being taken?

His mind was a complete fog, and he was lost inside himself. He wasn't sure where he was or even what his own name was. The only thing he definitely knew was that he wasn't supposed to be there, wherever there was. He knew he wasn't supposed in whatever situation he was in, and he knew that his life was in danger.

"L-let me go," he said weakly, but only received a short snort from the person dragging him.

The man pulling him stopped and Ed heard a door open, and then, the world ran past him in a dizzying blur. His stomach caught in his throat and he had to fight the urge to release the bitter bile that desperately wanted out. His body crashed against the cold, hard floor, but something warm immediately fell over his body. He kept his eyes screwed shut to keep the world still, but more than that, he was terrified at who or what was so warm against his skin.

"Edward?"

The voice sounded so familiar and it pained him that he couldn't recognize it. It was a kind and caring voice, so different from the one that had been toying in his head for the past hour. He liked the voice that was speaking to him now.

"Ed, say something."

The voice was cracking and an even greater pain hit him at hearing the voice break with a sob. He felt his body being squeezed against something warm and soft and he reveled in the comforting heat.

Whoever was speaking to him didn't mean him any harm, so he forced his eyes open to meet a face he had longed to see for what felt like an eternity. His senses came rushing back to him, overpowering the haze of his mind. Tears stung his eyes and he fought to keep them back with hard blinks, though that did little.

Wet tears trailed down his cheeks, leaving a clean streak through the dirt and grim. A lump caught in his throat as he reached his hand out to cup his brother's cheek; it was so warm against the palm of his hand. Fingers wrapped around his and squeezed tightly and he knew that this was real, that his brother was alive.

"Alphonse."

He broke down, letting a flood of tears fall from the corners of his eyes and pitiful sobs fill the air. Alphonse simply held him close in his arms.

They were both alive and together at last, but how long would that last?

* * *

**If this fic actually goes where I would like it to go, then the next chapter will actually have a lot more to it. The next chapter will, hopefully, be very intense. But I would like to give a fair warning now that the content in the next chapter might not be suitable to everyone's taste. It will be very graphic in a sense that I am not even comfortable writing about, but I feel that this certain turn in events will help to push the story along (even though I'll get a lot of hate mail for it...).**

**But yeah, moving on, I would like to point out that I do reply to majority of reviews I receive, so if you asked a question, then you got an answer!**

**I think that's it...  
Comments are welcome!**


	5. Irreversible

****

Kinda falls apart toward the end XP -shrug-

**Anyways, please read and review!**

* * *

A smile fell upon his face as he sighed deeply into the dusky locks of his younger brother. That smile was brought to his lips on the wings of a new hope; his heart had been set alight with the feeling the instant he had been brought back in the cell and found his brother alive and seemingly unharmed. For whatever reason, they had been reunited, finally together like they were supposed to be.

A swarm of emotions flew through him as he tightened his grip around the body that was smaller than his own, a _lot _smaller. He realized for the first time in that moment that Alphonse had lost a considerable amount of weight and his skin held a chalky texture to it now. His smile fell to a frown and his heart sank in chest as the new hope that had resided in him began to crumble. It was funny how brittle and fragile that thing called hope was, but it was something more than that, something a bit more sinister and dark...

Hope was deceitful.

In all of his life, Ed had never arrived to this conclusion, and as he held his younger brother against him, he realized that everything was going to plummet. It didn't matter that he had his brother again. It didn't matter that they were still alive. Because they were ultimately still clutched in the cold hands of death, of eternal sleep. They were still caged in like animals.

Hope was failing him. He thought it was going to help him see things through, to get out, but he was wrong. It was like some grand lie. A scheme for the already damned. This was his punishment for all of his past sins, he realized. He was supposed to be in pain, in doubt, and heartache. He was supposed to endure this suffering before he could be allowed fall in that everlasting darkness.

The arms of hope had built him up with strong thoughts of success and victory, but it was all dancing away from his grasp. In this most sinister of games, he was a simple grain of sand and hope was the wind carrying him away in what ever direction it chose.

Edward Elric tightened his grip again, unintentionally rousing his sibling from his sleep. An hour or so ago, Ed took the slate-eyed boy in his arms to better help him fall into that much needed dreamland, but he found that he could not relax his mind enough to do so. He was drowning in fear, and he truly believed that the second he closed his eyes everything would fall away from him. He feared that Alphonse would be taken from him.

Unable to sleep, he simply held his brother close against him, his arms wrapped protectively around his small body. Only minutes later the younger of two had dozed off, but now he was gazing up at his older brother with dull eyes.

Alphonse pulled himself out of his brother's arms and Ed reluctantly let him go. Al placed himself to Ed's right, pulling his knees against his chest for extra warmth; the wall they were sitting against was bitterly cold. The younger Elric turned his head to the side slightly, noticing the marks on his brother's upper arm: a black tattoo with the number 10-0310 and several small holes that resembled puncture wounds. He frowned as he followed the dried trail of blood that ran from each hole and down his arm.

"Brother, what did...what did they do to you?" he asked softly, eyes narrowing in the worry that he wasn't prepared to hear the horrific tale.

"Nothing," Ed replied. He kept his gaze ahead and face expressionless, but that didn't hide the quivering sorrow that plagued his voice. "Don't worry about it."

Al dropped his gaze to examine the side of his brother's body, riddled with gashes and scrapes, bruises and blood. When his wandering eyes reached his right foot, he looked down at his own body and immediately felt tears gather in his eyes. His brother's body, once beautiful and near flawless, was now damaged to such a hideous state of disrepair, but his own body was still the same as it was before having been brought to this cursed place, save for a bruise or two. How much more of this torture could his brother endure? More than that, how much more could _he_ endure letting it go on, not taking any of the damage for himself?

"Ed, do you think we'll get out of here?" he asked slowly, uneasily.

A deafening silence built that made Al doubt that his brother was going to answer at all.

"Alphonse, I love you."

Al's eyes widened. There had only been a small number of times when his brother had said those words, and Al realized that this was his brother's answer. He knew now that his brother didn't see a way out.

"Be strong," Ed said, at last turning his eyes to his dear brother. "These people are merciless, Al, and I...I don't know what will happen. I'm terrified, but I'm going to stay strong for as long as I can and I need you to do the same, okay?"

Al gave a small nod, wondering just how hopeless his brother saw the situation as.

"No matter what happens know that I love you and that I...I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"This is all my fault. We're stuck here because of me, because of my own recklessness. I put us here, but I don't know how to get us out." The words flowed from his mouth slowly as he fought to pick out the right words.

"I don't know what to do," he said in a faltering voice. He was the older brother, he was supposed to know what to do. But for once, he hadn't a clue. As every day, or what felt like a day, passed by, he knew that the chances of escaping were growing slimmer and slimmer.

Ed stretched his arm out, grasping the smaller shoulder in his palm. He gently pulled his brother close to him until his head was pressed against his chest. He felt the body he held tremble as something wet and cold crawled down his skin.

"I love you, Al," he whispered, resting his head on his brother's and sighing deeply.

After a few long minutes, the shaking stopped and warm breath brushed against his chest; Al was asleep. Ed didn't want to fall asleep, but his mind said otherwise. He was exhausted, physically and mentally, and maybe a few hours of deep sleep would do him good. Maybe then he would be able to think of something do to, some grand plan that would push them to the victory they desperately needed.

_'What a mess,' _he thought. His eyes slid shut and he was soon being eased down in a world of false realities.

* * *

A puff of gray drifted upward from his mouth as he exhaled, pulling his dying cigarette away from his lips. A chill ran through his body; he hated the cold. So annoying. The unrelenting heat of the day and the bitterly cold nights were beginning to take a toll on him. He was tired and found no pleasure in his cigarettes anymore. That was also proving to be another annoyance to the search. He would love to get back to Central and civilization, back in his comfy bed.

But he was torn...

Only two hours ago, it had been announced that they were going to go back to the camp at dawn. That meant that the mystery behind the disappearance of the Elric brothers would remain just that, a mystery. He cared for those two boys. Hell, just about everyone did. A part of him wanted to run his fist in his superior's jaw for giving up, but he knew from experience that Roy was right more often than not.

As Havoc threw his cigarette to the hard-packed soil, not bother to step on it as he usually did, he realized why the raven-haired man had given up. Roy was afraid. No, Roy was _terrified_. He was terrified that he would find the brothers in any way but alive, and as images built up in his mind, Jean Havoc couldn't blame him. Just the thought of either of the Elrics lying breathless and empty-minded instantly became a thought he did not want to entertain any longer.

Havoc sighed, running his fingers through his gritty hair. He turned to rejoin the others at the make-shift camp, having left to smoke, but something caught his eye. He swiveled back around, lips parted and eyes squinted in concentration. In the distance, he saw something shine in the moonlight. It had to be something metal and long as the light ran down its body as it moved, and as he focused his eyes on the object, he could make out the outline of a person. But no, there wasn't just one person, there were several.

Slowly, he turned and made his way back to the camp. He sat around the small fire next to Roy and said very casually, "Well, Colonel, there are some people back over there and I think they're armed."

* * *

_"Al? Al? Where are you? It's late. Mom's gonna worry."_

_He circled the large oak tree that made the very heart of the forest. It towered over all the other trees and wore a broad, healthy top that cast a wide shadow over him, stripping him from the barest ray of sunlight. Ed muttered a curse under his breath, propping himself against the rough bark of the trunk. Agitated, he crossed his arms over his chest and pinched his face together. Ed used to be a good Seeker, but nowadays, Al was too good of a Hider._

_There was a startling rustle from a nearby bush that made him press against the tree in surprise._

_"Alphonse? Is that you?"_

_He swallowed hard as he forced himself to step away from the tree. He slowly approached the thick shrubbery, breathing coming from his lips unevenly. There was no telling what was behind that thicket of leaves and weeds. . ._

_He screamed. But his scream was quickly covered by a howl of laughter._

_"Got 'ya!" Al said, laughing. "Man, the look on your face."_

_Al tossed his head back, sending his bright blond hair away from his face._

_"Brother, you're so mean!"_

_Alphonse shrugged, then placed his hand on his younger brother's shoulder. "Well, come on, we should get going."_

_Ed nodded, following his brother as he led the way out of the forest. He sighed softly and frowned as he watched the back of Al's head. He had always been somewhat jealous of his brother. Al just seemed more...well, _there_. He seemed more in touch with his surroundings and himself. And even for his young age, Ed knew his older brother was quite handsome with his honey eyes and vibrant locks, and his natural knack for alchemy would surely lead him to do many great things in life, things Ed couldn't even begin to imagine._

_"Ed, is something the matter?" Al asked, looking back at his younger sibling._

_"N-no, it's nothing," he replied, smiling and forcing a small chuckle._

_Alphonse shrugged and smiled back, saying, "Last one home is a rotten egg!" He took off in a run, and Ed ran forward too in an attempt to catch up with his older brother. _

_He . . ._

"How cute."

As he slowly opened his eyes, he immediately began to wonder if he would ever find out who was the winner of that race.

Ed blinked hard several times, driving the blurriness from his vision. He looked at the three men staring back at him. He locked his cold gaze with the leader of the trio, the Ishbalan with the Glasgow smile; they locked in a battle of gold and red where whoever broke away first, lost.

"How cute," the Ishbalan repeated. "Brotherly love."

It took a moment for Ed to make sense of what the man was saying, but then he realized that Al was still pressed against his body and his arm was stretched out to Al's shoulder.

"At least I can love, you heartless bastard," Ed said through clenched teeth, eyes still locked with the Ishbalan's.

"Oh, what cruel words you toss at me," the Ishbalan said sarcasticly, stepping forward. Ed instinctively pulled his younger brother closer against him, startling him from his sleep.

"Ed, wh-" His sentence fell incomplete and neglected as his eyes settled on the dark-skinned man approaching them.

"Do you really love him, mutt?" His red eyes broke from Ed's at last to look in Al's direction, but then went right back at Ed.

"Yes, of course I do," Ed said, pulling his brother even closer against him.

"I don't believe you. Show me."

"Wh-what?"

"Show me that you love him."

"I don't understand."

Despite his grip on his brother, the Ishbalan was able to tear the small body out of his arms.

"What are you doing?" Ed asked, voice rised to a horrified shriek. He was quickly on his feet, hands reached out to claim his brother from the man.

"I'll show you what I mean."

The Ishbalan spoke in a sinister voice and an evil look danced in his eyes. He wrenched Al's left arm behind his back, his other hand wrapped around the small waist to pull his body against his own. Ed immediately understood what was to happen, especially once the man flicked out his tongue to trace his captive's ear and his hand trailed up to toy with a nipple.

"Stop," Ed yelled. "Leave him alone!"

"I bet you're more fun to play with than he is," the Ishbalan whispered in his ear, just loud enough for Ed to hear too. "He's not even pretty anymore."

"N-no," Al pleaded, not only to the man but to himself. His eyes screwed shut as his body betrayed his plea at the man's arousing touch.

"You seem to like this," the man said, dipping each of his fingers in his naval as his hand traveled downward to capture the boy's slightly erect length. Al was only a kid, so he was completely unaccustomed to such touches; he had no control over his body's reactions like his older brother did, and as the man's hand wrapped around his length, his breathing hitched and back arched. "Oh, yes," the man said with a deep laugh, "you _do _like this."

"I don't," Al protested in a quivering voice. He placed his hand on the man's, tightly circling his fingers around his wrist as the man began to vigorously stroke him. He did something then that he would never be able to forget nor forgive himself for doing: he moaned.

He couldn't understand why his body was acting on its own. He couldn't understand how his body was getting such immense pleasure while his mind was being plucked apart. He couldn't understand why he was enjoying something he hated. It was all so screwed up.

Ed couldn't let this happen. Ages ago, his mother had told him that such a thing was meant to be kept between two people who loved each other. . . Two people? Who loved each other?

It dawned on him then what the Ishbalan had meant by wanting him to _show _that he loved Alphonse. He felt sick, downright nauseous at the thought. But as his brother's panting filled the air, accompanied by an unwilling moan here and there, it became too much for him to bare. He lunged forward.

"Get off him, you sick son of a bitch!" Ed yelled as he jumped through the air, but he tumbled back as weight was thrown against him. The air was driven from his lungs as he hit the hard floor with Alphonse lying dazed and breathless on top of him. Ed stayed motionless; stunned.

"Let me lay it down for you," the Ishbalan said, his voice firm and menacing, "either you can fuck him or I will, and I promise you I won't be gentle about it."

Ed sat up, taking his dazed brother in his arms. He gazed in his brother's wide eyes as he affectionately stroked his cheek in a comforting manner.

"Don't make me do this," he whispered. He pressed Al's head against his chest, his hand settling over his ear as if he didn't want his brother to hear the conversation. "Just use me. Take me instead. As many times as you want, I'll give myself to you. Just don't make me do this."

"While that is a very tempting offer, I'm going to have to say no. You see, I came here with a goal and I've always been one to reach for those finish lines. What better way to break someone down than to have someone that person loves and trusts hurt them for you? I need him broken down and you're going to do it," the red-eyed man said. "Or I will."

He knew he wouldn't be able to watch the Ishbalans rape his brother, but he definitely knew he wouldn't be able to do that to his brother either. There didn't seem to be a favorable choice in any of it. It was like calling tails on a coin with two head sides.

"Please, just give me a second," Ed said and was surprised when the man nodded.

Ed pulled his brother away from him, giving him a sad smile. "Alphonse," he whispered, not wanting the other three men to hear, "do you understand this?" Al nodded, his steel eyes magnified behind a wall of building tears. "I don't want this to ha-"

"All right, second's up," the Ishbalan said, stepping toward them with a wild look in his eyes.

"No!" Ed yelled, tightly wrapping his arms around the small body.

"Oh, so you'll do it?"

The alchemist's mind flew ahead of him at a rapid, almost incoherent rate. The thought of doing something so intimate with his _brother _was revolting, but what if he thought of someone else instead? Would it be easier if he just closed his eyes and let his imagination seize reality? No, no, that was crazy. No matter who or what he thought about, it wouldn't change the fact that he was violating his own brother's body. But...if he was the one to do it to him, then he would have better control over how much pain and pleasure Al felt. He could still feel the ache from when he'd been stripped away of his innocence, and he knew that they - like the man had said - wouldn't be at all gentle with the virgin body. Either way, it would a hellish experience for them both.

"Y-yes, I'll do it," Ed said softly. He'd been taught that sex was something that was meant to be kept between two people who loved each other, and Edward loved his brother more than anything and anyone. He decided that he didn't want those bastards to own his brother like they owned him; if he took Al's body, then he could surely give it back, couldn't he?

Ed pushed at this brother's shoulder, coaxing him on his back. He straddled Al's small hips and bent over his body, whispering softly, "Just close your eyes and be strong."

He waited until the slate orbs were hidden behind light skin. He contemplated what to do; hell, he was just as inexperienced as his brother. Ed decided that it would be best to take things as slow and gentle as possible, so he hovered his lips over Al's. He hesitated, lips trembling. He closed his eyes and his mind was no longer within his control as random people - all gorgeous women - filled his head.

Ed lowered his lips on the soft pair for a long kiss as his hand trailed down the slender neck, finding a nipple on the downward journey to take between his fingers.

_'She's so flat-chested,' _Ed thought as he ran his thumb over the captured skin, making it perk with life.

His lips left the woman's mouth to leave a trail of soft kisses down her neck. He sucked on the end of her collarbone before sinking down on her perked nipple, flicking his tongue out over the tip as he rolled it between his lips. The woman - damn it to hell, he'd forgotten to ask for her name! - moaned at the sensation.

But there was something wrong about the way the woman's chest felt against his mouth. Even a flat-chested woman had some softness to her bosom, but this one had none at all. It was just bone with a stretch of skin over it.

_'This doesn't feel right...'_

Ed opened his eyes, his mind snapping back to the harsh reality that this wasn't a woman and he did know a name for the person. He backed away immediately, panting heavily as he realized what he was doing and to who. Al's eyes were squeezed tightly shut, his lips were moist and parted, and there was a wet trail that ran down his neck and to his nipple.

What the hell had he been thinking!? This was insane and the fact that he'd actually participated brought it so much further than that.

He looked at the Ishbalans watching them. They were propped against the wall, their eyes intently fixed on the brothers. They looked so _hungry_, and Ed quickly set his gaze back on his brother's body.

_'What do I do? What the fuck do I do!?'_

He brought his lips back to Al's chest to buy time. He had to think of something and quick.

Ed was hardly able to put a lot of thought in his actions when the leader of the Ishbalan trio warned him to hurry up, that he was being too slow. This pushed Ed to act without thought, without the grand plan he had hoped to discover.

He trailed his hand down his own body, seizing himself in his hand. Vigorously, he ran his palm against his length until he was long and hard. This was something he wasn't a stranger to, and he kept going with his strokes until he was just about to his climax. He was close, so close to releasing himself.

Ed closed his eyes as he shimmied down his brother's body, spreading his legs apart. He blindly found the flowering entrance and pushed himself in. But the thought of preparing the virgin body hadn't crossed his mind in the faintest flicker and he instantly regretted his hastiness.

An anguished scream filled the air, echoing off the walls, as Al shot up in response to the intrusion. He coiled his shaking arms around his brother's shoulders, his finger nails digging into the soft flesh. Tears streamed down his cheeks and a playlist of screams and howls sang over and over.

Edward forced lewd images to form in his mind, anything that would help to push him over the edge as he pulled himself nearly all the way out and back in again.

"Stop!" Al shrieked. "No more! No more!"

Ed wanted to cry too. He wanted to scream and whimper, let every emotion and frustration crawl out of his mouth, but he couldn't afford to do such a thing. He had to finish what he had started, because if he didn't, then there would be consequences he wasn't willing to pay nor see be paid.

He blocked out his brother's pleas and screams, focusing all of his attention on just finishing the horrific task. The sooner he could release himself, the sooner it would all be over.

He sighed with a sickening relief as he was finally able to push himself past the limit, but Alphonse let out a yelp as the white seed exploded against his insides. So much for controlling how much pain Al felt.

Breathless, Ed pulled out of his brother and immediately turned his back to him; he couldn't bare the thought of seeing what damage he had caused, but he could hear it clearly enough. Al was sobbing terribly, the sound resembling hills as it rose and fell.

"Such a good boy," the leader Ishbalan muttered as he approached Ed, petting his hair. "Brotherly love." The man laughed, then turned, and in seconds they were gone, leaving Ed alone to face the consequences he hadn't thought about.

He licked his dry lips and swallowed hard as he turned to face his brother. Al was curled in a tight ball, a mix of bright blood and semen trailing from his abused hind, and his heavy sobs rang in Ed's ears like a curse.

"Al?" he asked softly, uneasily. He reached a hand out in an attempt to comfort his brother, but a hand swatted at his, making him pull his away back to safety.

"Don't touch me," Al warned through gritted teeth. "Don't touch me ever again."

As Ed crawled away from his brother, finding a spot in the corner to wallow in his guilt and shame, he realized that there was something he hadn't fully understood. He recalled the Ishbalan saying that he needed Al to be broken down, but why? What did they want with Al? More than that, had he actually _broken _his own brother?

He curled up in a tight ball of his own and quietly cried, his cold tears rolling down his knees.

He had just done so many terrible things to the only person he truly loved, and he knew there was no going back to the way things were.

The damage he had caused was irreversible.

* * *

**Again this fic has been pushed back a chapter! **

**Um...I know that Ed would never, ever, ever do something like that to his brother and I think I went about it the wrong way, but I have a reason (and if everything goes as planned, a good reason) for why I had this happen. I took a big risk with putting that event in there, but I hope it won't be taken in the wrong way or anything like that. I understand that not everyone likes/approves of Elricest (I don't, hence why I said I would be uncomfortable writing this in the last chapter), but please don't be rude about it when you review.**

**Also, when Ed was dreaming, I purposely switched their names. That was intentional! Ed was Al and Al was Ed :3 Some people have crazy dreams -shrug-**

**But anyway, please don't be too harsh in your reviews with this chapter.**

**Oh, and happy birthday, Taylor :)**


	6. Deranged

**All right, this chapter has some switches between the characters. What happens at one switch covers what's happening elsewhere. And I kinda screwed up on Ed...He's just...weird in this chapter o.o Oh, also, I so did not want to write today, but when I have the oppurtunity to write without interruptions, then I seize that oppurtunity. That said, some of this chapter is kinda...blegh.**

**Anyway, please read and review! By the way, don't worry, there's no more Elricest :p**

* * *

"Colonel, your actions?"

The sun was slowly creeping into view, casting streaks of pink and gold light across the darkness. Roy studied the growing light. He had told them that they would be heading back for the main camp at dawn, but with the Havoc's report of there being armed people not far away from them, Roy's gut told him to rethink that order.

"I want this area scouted," he said after a minute of thought. He turned to face the waiting soldiers and immediately began snapping orders for each man. If Roy's gut was telling him right, then they would find what their enemy was doing behind closed doors and who they had forced behind them.

* * *

He didn't know what to do. He didn't fucking know! It all seemed so hopeless. Was this the only point to his existence? Was he born just so he could die? Of course, the story of every person's life ends in the same place, but the difference between every person and him was that he didn't have a choice in the matter; the difference between every person and him was balled up on the floor only ten feet away.

His eyes locked on the still body, watching intently for that subtle rise and fall. When it came, he sighed and pulled his knees tighter against his chest. He wasn't sure how badly he had hurt his brother, so the first time Al's body went motionless, his eyes widened and heart raced; however, this was nothing more than a simple pause of breath, but still, every time that pause came, he had to watch to make sure the breathing resumed.

Ed wasn't sure how much time had passed since he'd touched his brother, but he did know that it had to have been more than a few hours. Through those hours, he had tried to communicate with his kin, but Al was completely unresponsive. It worried him that Al hadn't moved at all since that horrific deed. Now the hours came in complete silence, the air undisturbed as they both remained motionless.

As Ed closed his eyes, his forehead pressed against his knees, he wondered why no one had come to save him. He remembered being told that an alchemist and several soldiers had been spotted nearby, but that seemed like forever ago. He wondered if perhaps that had been a lie from the Ishbalan. It was more than a little possible. He knew that it wa-

"All right, kiddies, time to wake up."

The door flew open and the familiar trio of Ishbalans were quickly in the room. The suddenness of it made Ed jump to his feet in surprise, but Al was still motionless on the ground. Then he realized with a pounding fear that Alphonse was too far away from him, too far to protect, and since Lady Luck despised him, the Ishbalans went for Al.

"Don't go near him!" Ed yelled, lunging forward. Before he could do any damage to any of the three, the damage was done to him as a hard and fast fist knocked him to the ground.

"Now, now, don't be so dramatic," the leading Ishbalan said with an odd purr. He grabbed Al by the forearm and pulled him up, leaning the small body against his. "We just want to play with him." He kissed Al's cheek, giving a toying look and devious grin at the older Elric. "We're having a party, you see, and he's invited. All right, time to go. Wave bye-bye to your brother." The Ishbalan grabbed Al's right arm and jerked it to mimic a wave. He laughed as he dragged the boy away.

"No!"

Ed was quickly back on his feet once he saw that they were going to take his brother away from him. But once again, his attempt was thwarted. A tight fist rammed itself in his gut, making him gag and fall to his knees. Following that bullet-like punch was a kick to his jaw that flung him backwards in a daze.

They were long gone by the time he recomposed himself. Whatever they did to Al, he just hoped it wouldn't be as bad as what they did to him.

* * *

"Colonel Mustang!"

"What is it?"

"Sir, you need to see this," Hawkeye said.

"Well, this is something new," the alchemist remarked after seeing what it was that Riza had wanted him to see.

In the distance, they could see people disappearing into the ground and then reappearing from the earthen surface. They were loading wooden crates onto the bed of a truck. They were clearly Ishbalan, and each one of them was armed.

"Round up the men," he said as the truck drove away. "We're going in at midnight."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

_"No, I will!"_

_"No way! It'll be me!"_

_"Yeah, right," the blond snorted. "She loves me more."_

_"N-no, she doesn't."_

_"You sure? 'Cause she told me otherwise."_

_"That's not true! She loves me! I'm going to marry her!" Alphonse yelled, running his small fist into his brother's jaw._

_Furious, Ed swung back. Regret hit him immediately as he watched his younger brother tumble to the ground. He dug his hands deep in his pockets and turned to leave, not wanting to hurt him any more._

"I'm sorry...Alphonse," he muttered, curling up tightly.

Ed yelled as a tremendous weight fell upon him and harsh lips latched onto his, eyes snapping open. He brought up his hands to push the man away, but tight fingers wrapped around his wrists and pinned them down to his sides. A determined tongue weaseled itself in his mouth, pressing hard against his own tongue and teeth.

_'No, no, no, no!' _he screamed, the simple word echoing in his mind. He didn't want this, not again.

Ed bit down on the invading muscle, feeling his mouth fill up with blood. He dug his teeth in more, wondering if he could bite off the man's tongue entirely. But before his teeth could touch each other, fingers wrapped tightly around his throat. He lost that battle as he released the man's tongue, the fingers in turn releasing his throat.

"You piece of shit," the Ishbalan yelled, running his fist into Ed's jaw. He spat out his mouthful of blood on his captive's chest, a dark smile falling on his lips. He leaned forward, his mouth at Ed's ear. "I was going to be gentle, let you enjoy it, but you've ruined that." He ran his abused tongue along Ed's ear, coating it in bright blood.

"Give him back," Ed groaned as teeth nipped at his neck.

"He's already dead," said the man in a low voice and sinister laugh. "Oh, yes, I made him scream. It was the most beautiful sound. But I bet if I tried hard enough, your scream will be even more delightful."

With those dark words, he reached in his pocket and withdrew a knife. He flicked the blade out, enjoying how wide his captive's eyes got. So full of fear. Exquisite.

The red-eyed man swung the blade down. He loved the wave that vibrated up his arm as metal dove into flesh, but what he didn't like was how lackluster his toy's scream was.

"Come on, you can do better than that," he said in an encouraging manner, pulling the blade out. The scream that followed was a lot closer to what he wanted to hear, but he still wanted the anguished cry to be more.

Ed squeezed his eyes shut, fighting to keep tears from slipping past the lids. From his collarbone to his left wrist was burning in pain and he could feel his arm beginning to numb. He cursed himself for his howl of pain as the knife dug into his left shoulder again and then removed itself, tears falling from the corners of his eyes.

He forced his eyes opened as the man ran the back of his hand against his cheek. Fingers trailed up in his grimy hair in a soothing manner. And as Ed looked into his eyes, he realized that it could all just end there.

"Please, kill me," he said, eyes wide and pleading.

"Oh, why in the world do you want to die?" The Ishbalan ran his fingers back over Ed's cheek, chasing away falling tears.

"I don't...I don't deserve to live anymore. Not after this," Ed said, breaking into a fit of sobs. In every essence of the word, he had failed. It didn't matter to him the things that were done to him, but the things he had done to another weighed heavy on his mind and heart. Alphonse was dead because of him. He'd hurt his own brother in the worst possible way, and now Al was dead. What did he have to live for? How could he even take another breath knowing all of the things he'd done?

"You poor, poor thing," the man murmured, shaking his head. "You're so broken, and you don't even know it, do you? Look at you. You're so pathetic. Worthless now."

Ed closed his eyes as he tilted his head into the man's warm hand. Maybe if he was obedient and kind to the Ishbalan, then his death would be swift and painless. He would like that.

"Please," he pleaded softly.

"I can't do that," the man replied, and said in voice so dark and malicious, "You're too fun to kill."

Ed didn't resist in the slightest as the man's hands ghosted down his sides, his lips touching his throat and collarbone. He winced as the man's mouth met the stab wound on his shoulder, and he screamed as the man's tongue, despite the infliction Ed had placed on it, dipped into the wound. Ed brought his hands to the Ishbalan's shoulders for support from the pain.

"Hmm, that's good," the man murmured. An idea sprung on him as he paused, bringing his gaze to the blond's. "Tell me you want me to fuck you." He pressed the palm of his hand against Ed's damaged shoulder, loving the short scream that followed. "Say it, you worthless piece of shit."

"Fuck me!" Ed yelled as the pain became unbearable and a blur of color danced in his vision. He realized then that he really was worthless and pathetic. A disgrace. He realized that he was broken and still breaking. He realized that he wouldn't be the victor in any of this. He had lost. Game over.

The Ishbalan laughed as he settled himself between his captive's legs, running the metal tongue of his zipper down. He grabbed Ed by his ankles to bind him upon himself for better access. He didn't bother with any kind of preparation, just simply pushed himself deep and hard inside the tight entrance. He laughed against as the teen cried out.

In and out. In and out. As he had said before, he wasn't gentle at all about it as he kept his pace quick and rough. He smiled in fascination as he looked down at what he was doing and saw bright red liquid escaping the attack. It so warm against his hard cock, and he loved it. What he really loved was the blond's pained cries and even moans of pleasure. The little bastard seemed caught between enjoying what was in him, pounding against his prostate, or hating it.

But he felt he needed more of a response from the blond. He felt he had to get the most out of this, given how complient his captive was. The Ishbalan once more pressed the palm of his hand against the teen's shoulder. He pressed hard, very hard.

A blood-curdling scream filled the air. It was loud and shrill enough to wake the long dead. But then there was silence, and as the man looked down at Ed, he smirked at seeing that he'd lost consciousness. He was _proud _of himself, happy that he was able to push the once-rebellious prisoner to such a point.

He finished a minute later, releasing his white seed in the warm tunnel. When he pulled out, he carelessly let the body drop to the ground. The Ishbalan rose to his feet and left, but as he was leaving he ran his finger over his still-bleeding tongue, moaning slightly at the pain the simple touch had brought. In that moment, a part of him wished he would have been Ed then. He would have loved to feel such tremendous pain.

Mumbling. Someone was mumbling.

This intrusion on his hearing succeeded in pushing him out of the darkness some time later. He felt dizzy and numb, pain stretched out over his entire body.

"Pale white and black with false citrine, imperfect white and red . . ."

As his senses came back to him, he could make out the muttered words, but who was saying them and why? He blinked several times to bring definition back to his vision.

"The peacock's feathers in bright colors . . ."

With a groan, he sat up, immediately burying his head in his hands. So dizzy.

"The rainbow in the sky above, the spotted panther . . ."

Who the fuck was talking? It was pissing him off that he couldn't identify the voice and that the speaker was saying the most nonsensical things.

"The green lion, the crow and beak, blue as lead . . ."

But there was something terribly familiar about what the person was saying.

"They shall appear before you in perfect white and with many others . . ."

What was it? He could remember these words from somewhere before.

"After the perfect white follows the grey and false citrine also, and after these shall appear the substance . . ."

He knew what these words meant. He knew, but he wished he didn't. Years ago, he committed alchemy's greatest taboo: human transmutation. He could remember writing those same words in the circle. He could remember sitting next to his brother as he ran the brush over the floor.

"Pale white and black with false citrine, imperfect white and red . . ."

Ed swallowed hard as he raised his head from the palms of his hands and slowly turned. His eyes widened at what he saw.

"The peacock's feathers in bright colors . . ."

It was Alphonse, but at the same time, it wasn't.

"The rainbow in the sky above, the spotted panther . . ."

He was rocking back and forth on his heels, his knees kissing chest. Ed could see that his body was blistered and red; he'd been badly burned.

"The green lion, the crow and beak, blue as lead . . ."

His skin was smeared with blood and spotted with black bruises. As Ed looked at his fingers, he gasped as he saw that every nail had been torn away and his pinkie finger was even gone, the end cauterized shut.

"They shall appear before you in perfect white and with many others . . ."

His steel eyes were wide and wild. Deranged. Not the eyes he loved. And his voice was clipped with shudders and gasps. Not the voice he loved.

"After the perfect white follows the grey and false citrine also, and after these shall appear the substance . . ."

"Alphonse?"

The younger Elric snapped his attention to the speaker, a questioning look swirling in his eyes. Ed didn't like that look. Then, Al let out a maniacal laugh before continuing his chant.

"Pale white and black with false citrine, imperfect white and red . . . "

"Al? Al? Answer me."

"The peacock's feathers in bright colors . . ."

Ed's fists tightened in anger. He forced himself to his feet, ignoring the sudden burst of dizziness that clouded over his mind. Pure rage coursed through his veins.

"The rainbow in the sky above, the spotted panther . . ."

That rage worked as fuel as he ran to the door, slamming his hands against the hard surface.

"You fucking bastards! What the fuck did you do to him!?" he yelled, banging the palms of his hands agains the door. The pain he felt doubled, but he ignored it, tossed it aside.

"The green lion, the crow and beak, blue as lead . . ."

"Open this fucking door!" he continued to yell. He clapped his hands and pressed them against the door, but nothing happened. Again he tried, and again, and again.

"They shall appear before you in perfect white and with many others . . ."

Every time he clapped his hands, there not even the smallest of sparks. No reaction whatsoever.

"Shit," he muttered, pressing his back against the door and sliding down it. It was hard to ignore the pain now, and his vision began to blacken.

"After the perfect white follows the grey and false citrine also, and after these shall appear the substance . . ."

Ed looked at his brother as he fell sideways against the door, plummeting into darkness.

"Pale white and black with false citrine, imperfect white and red . . ."

* * *

Roy Mustang looked up at the darkening sky. It was getting close.

They waited several more hours before midnight came around, and that was when Roy gave the order.

The small troop pressed forward in the dark night for where they'd seen the Ishbalans loading a truck with crates. Luckily, there weren't any guards about as they got closer to the spot. They found a door in the ground, which explained why it seemed to them that the Ishbalans were coming from the ground.

One of the soldiers opened the door. A staircase of stone led further into the soil. They descended the steps, slowly and cautiously. They were armed and ready.

When the steps ended, they found themselves in a corridor with many rooms on both sides. The place was dimly-lit, but at least it wasn't total darkness. The first few doors led to completely empty rooms, and the further they went done the tunnel, the more used the rooms became. Most had operating tables and shelves of vials, while some looked like they were used for torture. There was even a room with just a bathtub in it and blood on the walls.

But as they entered one room, they found something worth finding: a jacket, blood-red and hooded with a black Flamel crest on the back. There was no mistaking whose jacket this was.

"He's here," Roy said to himself as he tightened his fingers around the red cloth. There were other clothes in the corner of the room too, clothes Roy could recall on Alphonse. "They're here," he said, whizzing around to face the others.

"Hey!"

Shots immediately rang through the air. They'd been spotted, but they'd acted quick. Alerted by the gun fire, more people came running in the room, some from Ishbal and some from Xing.

The group left the room, stepping over a handful of bodies. They continued down the tunnel, checking every room and taking down several people along the way. Roy knew this wasn't right, killing these people, but as they turned down a hallway to find cells where people were imprisoned, he felt they deserved it. The people locked in the cells were all malnourished and most of them were pass the point of sanity. He couldn't deal with them, not yet; the Elrics were locked somewhere in there and he had to find them first.

Down another hall they went, opening doors along the way, except the ones that were locked. As they neared the end of the hall, a man stepped out of a room. He was from Ishbal and his face was badly scarred, but Roy saw that he had strands of gold hair in his right hand.

Roy ran forward in a sprint, snapping his fingers. Fire exploded from his fingertips, chasing after the red-eyed man to engulf him in burning flames. The man screamed in agony and fell to the floor clutching himself, but then he started laughing wildly as his skin burned.

The raven-haired man ran past him, leaving him for the others to deal with, as he ran through the room the Ishbalan had just left.

He froze, his heart pounding in his chest.

Two bodies: One dead and one quickly following in his brother's steps.

* * *

**Muwhahaha!**

**Anyway, this chapter could have been better (especially where Roy and 'em go through the catacombs), but -shrug-**

**Thanks for all the reviews so far! :) And thanks for not being all rude and whatnot about the last chapter. I understand that one was a dozy. But yeah, please review!**


	7. Unspoken

Blood, semen, and fire. It all rushed into his nostrils and flew to his mind with such immense speed that he almost went reeling backwards. It was a truly hellish aroma, only lacking the bitter scent of brimstone.

His eyes took only a moment to adjust to the dimly-lit room, but there was mistaking the scene that was laid out before him. There were two bodies on the hard floor, and their identities were clear despite the harsh damage to their bodies. One was obviously dead, his eyes wide and dull and chest still, but the other one wasn't quite like his brother yet.

As Roy Mustang rushed forward, a gunshot ran through the air and the maniacal laughing of the Ishbalan outside ceased. He was on his knees, cradling the battered body in his arms when the others invaded the room.

"Come on, stay with me," he pleaded, rocking the boy back and forth.

The others spread about the room, most uncertain as to what to do. Havoc dropped next to the dead body, checking hopefully for some sign of life. Hawkeye, on the other hand, went immediately to Roy's side. Her mouth dropped open at the site of the Elric.

"Don't do this to me, Ed. Damn it, hang on," he continued, shaking his head.

Edward Elric was going to die. It was as simple as that. But no, Roy refused to let him go without a fight. Ed was still breathing, still alive by only a thin thread, and that meant that he could still fight away the darkness.

Roy found the blond's hand and squeezed it tightly in his as he continued coaxing the alchemist from that pool of everlasting darkness. The small body twitched and convulsed in his arm and his gold eyes kept trying to roll back in his head to hide. The older Elric looked rabid with the strand of saliva running down his chin, and Roy desperately wished he knew what was the cause of this.

Then, the strings of hope were cut and everything went tumbling down.

Ed's body went limp in Roy's cradling arm. His eyes successfully rolled back and then slid shut, and his body no longer twitched as it had.

"Edward," he breathed as he squeezed the blond's hand once more, reluctant to let go and accept the truth.

As he pulled the warm body even closer against his own, he was fairly certain Riza was crying behind him, but he zoned that out as he begged forgiveness in the blond's ear. Ed's head was resting against his chest as he whispered in his deaf ears, but he felt something warm brush against his neck. Ed was breathing! He was alive!

"A warrior through and through," Roy whispered, something of a smile painted on his face.

He placed one arm under Ed's knees and the other behind his shoulders and gently lifted his limp body from the cold floor. He looked at the others and gave a sad glance at the younger Elric, Alphonse.

"Is he..."

"Yes, sir," Havoc replied in a faltering voice, knowing what his superior had wanted to asked. _Is he dead?_

"Someone carry him, please," Mustang said, nodding at the lifeless boy. He didn't wait to see who had answered the call; instead he walked out of the room, Riza close beside him, where the smell of burning flesh met them. The Ishbalan with the scared face from before was lying in a puddle of his own blood, his skin licked off by the hungry flames of Roy's alchemy. Roy thought it best to get away from the corpse and so walked a good fifteen feet or so down the corridor.

In the better light of the hallway, the extent of Ed's wounds were better seen. There wasn't a single spot of his body that wasn't marked by a bruise or a cut or dried blood. The skin of his shoulder was hidden beneath a pool of blood, and Roy was positive it was a stab wound. Ed's forehead was split and his lips mimicked that, and Roy frowned in puzzlement as he saw the black numbers and puncture wounds on Ed's right arm. But the greatest horror . . .

Roy felt his heart skip a beat as his eyes ventured down the bare body. It was more than obvious that the blond had been sexually abused before and recently. He could see specks of white decorating the inside of his blood-painted thighs, and he knew that if he were to look at Ed's back, he would find where that blood had come from.

He felt suddenly sick and swallowed hard to force the rise of bile and acid that wanted out. He let out a shaky breath and brought his gaze forward, no longer able to withstand the sight of the sinister artwork.

There was a rustle of movement next to him and he turned to look at Riza. She offered him a small smile as she slid her arms out of her military jacket to reveal a black top. That done, she stepped forward and placed the stretch of blue fabric over the teen's body with a subtle shrug.

A moment later the others appeared from the room, each person warily looking down at the dead Ishbalan. Jean Havoc had Al in his arms, the small body clenched tightly against his. Roy didn't say anything as he noticed the wet trails that ran from the man's eyes, but Roy didn't understand why he wasn't crying too. He was torn apart inside and filled with such immense guilt, shame, and despair.

"Colonel Mustang," one of the soldiers said, stepping toward the famous alchemist, "we found this inside." He held out his hand, an empty vial in his palm.

"DW?" Roy questioned as he read the simple letters on the white paper of the vial.

"I think, sir," Havoc began, "that's what made Ed as he was when we first found him."

"You're probably right. Bring it with us."

"Colonel, what are we going to do about the others here?" Havoc asked.

After a minute of thought, Roy replied, "We're going to get Ed and Al somewhere safe first, and then I'll have some soldiers sent back here to have things tended to."

No one argued or protested the man's decision, thankfully.

With two armed soldiers walking in front, they backtracked out of the catacombs and were soon standing under the morning sun, but that was when things once again went tumbling down.

They had only been walking back towards the camp for ten minutes when Ed's eyes shot open and he rolled out of Roy's arm, bringing up dust as he hit the ground. He was quickly back on his feet, his eyes wide and wild.

"Shut up! Shut the fuck up!" he yelled, grabbing his head. "It's not true!"

"E-Ed?" Roy said, uncertainly reaching out toward the blond.

"Leave me alone!" the young alchemist shrieked as he pulled at his hair. "I didn't want to do that! I didn't! I swear I didn't!"

Roy stepped forward and grabbed the blond at his elbow, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"You believe me, don't you?" Ed asked Roy. His voice was pleading and pathetic, but his gaze was hard and penetrating. "I didn't have a choice! I had to do it, but that doesn't mean I wanted to!" he said in almost a scream as he shoved the raven-haired man aside.

Roy turned around and watched in horror as the blond began to scream and pull at his hair again.

"Shut up," Ed screamed. "You don't know! You weren't there! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

What came next was something that made their hearts stop. It was something that they had no way of knowing would happen and feared couldn't be stopped.

Edward rushed toward Riza, screaming at the top of his lungs. They watched as he pushed her to the side, his fingers wrapping around the gun in the holster at her side. He placed the deadly end under his chin and his eyes squeezed shut, voice still pleading for whatever he was hearing to end. The sound of the hammer being pulled back filled the air.

"Ed!" Roy yelled, running forward at a full tilt. He had a very big doubt that he was going to make it in time, but he forced his legs to move as fast as they could.

He tackled the blond, bringing him to the ground. The gun fired, the deathly noise hanging in the air for what felt like a decade. The world froze, and Roy swallowed hard as he looked down at Ed and then himself. Relief washed over him at the discovery of neither of them getting hit, and from the sound of things behind him, no one else had been hit either. When he'd rammed himself into Ed, his arm had gone up and out and then fired, causing the bullet to go through the air at an elevated angle.

He wrapped his hands around Ed's wrists, squeezing until the blond's grip on the gun let off. Ed struggled determinedly underneath him, desperate to try again. Riza quickly stooped down and took her gun back into her possession and far from Ed's grasp.

"Please, leave me alone," Ed begged. Tears flowed freely from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks in a grateful escape. "I've had enough. Just leave me alone."

Roy didn't know what to do. It was clear that Edward was suffering, but Roy didn't know what he could do to make it stop. He wished he knew what was actually going on. He wished he knew what Ed was hearing and what was tormenting him so.

He decided that he would keep the blond pinned down until he calmed down, and that's exactly what he did. After a little over an hour of listening to Ed plead and beg for an end and try to fight out of Roy's grip, his eyes slid shut and he fell silent and still. Exhausted.

Roy warily released Ed's wrists and took him back into his arms. Wordlessly, he began walking again and the others followed.

_'What happened to you, Edward?' _the alchemist thought as he walked forward, glimpsing down at the teen's expressionless face. He wondered what was on the road ahead. He wondered if Edward Elric was still Edward Elric.

* * *

The sky was crying, millions of cold droplets bathing the city. It created a steady rhythm as the rain drops thumped on the roof tops of the city. Ed hadn't heard the _pit-pat_ of rain in days, and the foreign sound roused him from his sleep. His eyes widened, darting this way and that at the unfamiliar surroundings. He tried really hard to move his arms but quickly found that he was bound. Despite this, he tried to move, jerking his arms and legs.

"We don't trust you."

Ed snapped his gaze at the speaker, his heart pounding. The moment he heard the voice, he thought it was the Ishbalan with the Glasgow smile, but as he looked at the man he realized that he was still asleep and thus had to be dreaming.

"We don't trust you with yourself," Roy Mustang said, approaching the side of the bed. He looked down at the cuff, leather with a fur in-line, that was wrapped around Ed's left wrist and secured on the rail of the bed. There was a cuff on each of his wrists and his ankles. "Tomorrow they'll probably be taken off, so just try to put up with it for now. How are you feeling?"

He looked down at the blond, glad that all of the blood had been cleaned away from his face and body and all of his injuries had been carefully tended to. He offered a kind smile, but Ed kept silent, just dumbly looking up at him.

"You've been out for ten hours or so," Roy said as he eased himself down in a chair. "The doctor should be arriving within the hour. He wants to draw some blood to have it tested."

It worried Roy greatly how silent Ed was. Something wasn't right, and Roy wondered if Ed still had a mind of his own. The blond's horrific outburst hours ago had sparked this thought, but now that he had a better look at how Ed was acting, it seemed even more plausible that there was indeed something off.

"Ed, can you hear me? Do you understand what I'm saying?" he asked slowly, sitting on the edge of his chair.

Only silence.

Roy sighed deeply as he ran his fingers through his hair and sat back in his chair. Everything was just so fucked up. Ed was obviously not all there anymore, not that Roy blamed him for it, Al was in a morgue having his body poked and prodded in an autopsy, and things would never ever, ever, _ever _be the same again. And he truly found himself as the ultimate reason for all that had gone wrong. If he would have made Ed stay behind instead of going after that woman and child, then maybe the Elrics would still be together and unharmed. Or if not that, maybe if he would have gone after them sooner. Maybe finding the underground chambers a day sooner would have saved both of their lives.

He looked at Ed, and for a brief moment, he saw Alphonse. He hadn't noticed until then just how much Ed and Al really looked alike, but now he wouldn't be able to make a closer comparison of the two. He frowned as it fully hit him for the first time that the younger Elric was dead. Roy wondered if Ed knew.

There was a small knock on the door and Roy turned his attention to it. In walked a man with a white coat and stethoscope around his neck.

"Good afternoon," the doctor greeted, nodding at the patient and guest. He made his way to the blond and commenced in a routine examination. "Everything looks fine," he commented as he wrapped his stethoscope back around his neck, but he reached into the deep pocket of his coat and withdrew an empty syringe. When he pulled the cap off to reveal a pointed needle, Ed's eyes widened.

"N-no," the blond croaked, swallowing hard. The closer the needle got to him, the more he began to struggle. He jerked his arms and legs and lifted his body off the mattress. "Please, not again. Don't do it again."

"I'm just going to draw a bit of blood, Mr. Elric. It won't hurt at all," the doctor said soothingly, but Ed wasn't swayed.

"Don't! Please! I've had enough! I've had enough," Ed shrieked, tears trailing down his cheeks as he continued to jerk his body in an attempt at freedom.

"Mr. Elric, please calm down. No one's going to hurt you. You're safe here."

The doctor looked at Roy for help as his words went unheard by the blond, and Roy responded by holding down the small body, holding his left arm securely down. Ed continued to beg and yell as the doctor approached with the needle. He expertly found a vein and broke the metal point through the skin at the joint of his elbow. Roy watched as the tube filled with dark blood, a frowned creased on his face as Ed began to sob.

"I'll have this sent to the lab," the doctor said after removing the needle and capping it again. "If luck is on our side, then the results should be in within three days. We're still trying to identify what was in that vial you gave us."

The doctor left shortly after, and Roy immediately began to comfort the younger alchemist with soothing words and soft strokes. It wasn't long before Ed slipped into a deep sleep, and Roy sank back into his chair.

He knew now that Edward Elric was no longer Edward Elric.

At some point, Roy nodded off. He wasn't sure how long he had been out, but he was awakened by rapid breathing and muttered words.

"T-tonight...tonight..."

Roy opened his eyes to find that it was Ed who was talking. He quickly rose to his feet and went to Ed's bed, looking down at him. Ed was still asleep, but his breathing was quick and shallow.

"Whis-s-sper t-tonight...death...devil..."

_'What the hell?' _Roy thought, eyes narrowed in confusion.

"Evil...w-water..."

_'Evil water? What does that mean?'_

The nonsensical muttering stopped and Ed's breathing gradually went back to normal. He must have been dreaming. Yeah, just dreaming. And dreams were nothing to worry about.

Unable to decode Ed's words at all, Roy returned to his sleep in the uncomfortable chair, but while the heart of Central was silent and still in the night hours, downtown Central was buzzing.

The newspaper called it Bloody Tuesday: 43 people dead and 72 injured.

* * *

**Sorry that this was such a late update. It was hard to piece everything together, and I'm not entirely happy with second half of this chapter. Anyway, if you're confused, I promise that everything will be explained later on, and there will be more than a couple of flashbacks. There will be some major stuff happening soon. A lot of really major stuff.**

**I would like to say that I haven't previously mentioned if there would be any pairings in this or anything like that. I did this because I didn't want you lovely readers to use that to figure out who would live and die and whatnot. Okay, so, this fic will be RoyEd, BUT not like "Zomg, Edo! I wuv you soo much! Lets go do it on my desk XD" No, it's parental. Roy feels very guilty for all that happened and in previous chapters I had included that he saw the Elrics as his sons. Be warned though, there will be one upcoming scene that will be very controversial to this parental thing. I'm not sure yet if this particular scene will happen in the next chapter or way later though. **

**I think that's it...  
So yeah, sorry for the long update, you won't be kept in the dark for long, and this is parentalRoyEd.**

**Please review :)**


	8. Death

**I love/hate this chapter; well, that's true for this entire fic XP**

**Anyway, enjoy reading.**

* * *

_'What a night,' _he thought, sighing as he ran his fingers through his hair. He was tired. Untainted exhaustion rolled throughout his entire mind and body. His soul.

Roy Mustang had only had one hour of blissful sleep when all the world stopped and ruin began. He was thrown out of his dreams by the wailing cry of sirens outside and the yells of doctors and nurses. The screams of patients. The silent sorrow of the deceased.

People were still being carried into the hospital. Bleeding. Mouth foaming. Dead.

Chaos.

Ruin.

Despair.

The streets of downtown Central were painted red with splotches of blood. Jumpers.

Roy sympathized with the ones who would have to clean up that mess.

He let out a leaden sigh as he looked up at the morning sky, whose beauty was making him sick; on the human level, everything was so ugly. Mankind had turned the world into such a hideous and misshapen creature of malice and misery**.**

A gentle breeze tossed his hair back, running playfully through each silken strand. He had needed to get away from the growing decay inside the hospital, so he reluctantly left Ed asleep in his bed and climbed upward until he was out in the streaming warmth of gold light and lazy breeze that bathed the hospital roof. It was a beautiful day. Picturesque.

His black eyes, dull and sunken, gazed down at the streets below. Chaos there.

Like the whispers of a ghost, he could hear the warnings from the few blue-clad soldiers below yelling out not to drink any tap water. Those who weren't yelling the warning most certainly were not hearing anything other than their own sobs and the weeping of the person next to them. It seemed that everyone in Central had lost someone. Or maybe they were all just in shock that something so sinister could happen within the boundaries of their great city, their supreme country.

The culprits had not been caught, but Roy wasn't dumb. He knew exactly who to point the finger at, but this had happened before, and it was still warm in his mind. The image of Ed pulling his hair, his screams of agony tearing through the air haunted him. The gun under his chin. Surely what had happened to Ed was the same as what had happened during the night.

The renegade Ishbalans were behind this, hellbent on getting revenge, and they most certainly were not alone. Somehow, their plea had been heard by the people of Xing, who swiftly took the tan-skinned group under their wing of protection. They worked together now in a deadly alliance.

Roy knew that they were the ones who had drugged the downtown water-well. They'd made the first move, a very crippling move, and he knew they were serious now. With this thought, he realized war would soon grace the horizon with a dark display of gunfire and death. And he knew that he would once again be called out to ensure their victory. Once again, he'd be a murderer.

But he wondered if his actions would be more justified this time around. He wondered if it was okay to take a life for all that had happened. After all, those bastards had taken so many people and treated them like animals. They'd killed Alphonse Elric, too young to have even lived at all, and almost done the same with Edward, who was, as far as Roy could tell, no longer sane. And now this.

Now all that needed to happen was the sky to fall. And with all that had happened and was probably going to happen, Roy didn't doubt the possibility of that beauty crashing down and cleansing the ugliness of the world, of mankind.

Roy looked up at the sky and watched for signs of its descent but only saw the clouds drift by. He shrugged and turned, soon finding himself carefully going down the steps and gradually entering a much more chaotic realm. The fine hairs on the back of this neck stood erect as he felt everything shift and darken, but he kept going.

Death hung in the hair like a black, velvet curtain. Heavy and suffocating. Allowing not a single shred of hope or light through its thick defenses.

He bowed his head as he passed several body bags and a sheet-covered corpse on a gurney. There was nowhere to put the dead.

The alchemist turned quickly, pushing open the door to Ed's room and stepping inside. There was a man, a doctor, standing next to Edward, his gloved fingers gently checking the horrendous wound that lived on Ed's shoulder.

"How is he?" Roy asked as he approached the doctor.

"Oh, didn't hear you come in. His physical injuries are healing nicely," the doctor replied as he began wrapping the blond's wound with a fresh bandage. "But his silence leads me to believe he's been mentally scarred, which of course is nothing short of expected."

Roy looked down at the younger alchemist and frowned. He could see how far away Edward was from the world, his amber eyed dull and still. Dead.

"Well, that does it here," the doctor said, giving a soft pat to the top of Ed's head. "Back to that hellhole out there. This is such a mess." The doctor muttered a few curses under his breath as he left the room, but he stopped just as he reached the door. "Oh, right, I almost forgot. A man by the name of Hughes came by looking for you not too long ago. No more than an hour ago. Anyway, he asked me to give you this."

The doctor rummaged in the deep pocket of his coat and pulled out a neatly folded paper, handing it out for Roy to take. Needing to add a few more white strokes on Hell's black canvas, the older man scurried out of the room.

Roy opened the note, his eyes scanning his friend's precise handwriting. He nodded to himself, slipped the note in his pocket, and turned his attention on Ed.

"Ed," he said softly, "I promise I'm going to help you through this. You're going to be okay, all right?" Reassuringly, he took the blond's small hand in his and squeezed, hoping for some type of response. Nothing.

The alchemist frowned deeply, his heart beating in his boots, as he left the room to follow the instructions on Maes' note.

When he stepped out in the hallway, he was relieved to find that the lifeless bodies had been removed and brought somewhere else. Even though the physical evidence of death was no longer there, it could still be felt. Heavy and ominous. A suffocating presence.

Like closing a door, he shut the world away from him as he left the hospital and stepped out on the sidewalk. He couldn't stand the yelling and sobbing. The warnings.

Central was drowning in chaos and confusion.

* * *

_'My head...Where am I? This place...This place...What's happening?'_

Amber eyes bolted from left to right, mind instantly filling with fear as he saw the blood on the stone walls of the room. A single lightbulb hung from the center of ceiling, dim and blinking, its life not far from a dark end. The room, as far as he could recall, was unfamiliar to him, and he wondered what sadistic pleasures would his captors partake in. Would they perform more experiments on him? Or was his upcoming future to be filled with something more heinous, something more along the lines of physical domination?

He cringed at the thought and jerked his arms in a means of escape, but he quickly found his efforts went unpurchased as the sound of metal clinking against metal met his ears; he was chained to the bed by handcuffs at his wrists and ankles.

Pain webbed out over his entire body, running along his skeletal frame and hitting every nerve along the way. The pain coursed through him with such unrelenting power that he fantasized about begging them for a sweet end to the burning, throbbing sensation. He'd do anything for a shot of morphine. Or a fucking bullet through his head.

As if any one of those bastards could be that merciful.

Edward chewed on his bottom lip as he tried to force the pain to subside, but when that proved useless, he let out a grunt of frustration and hid his eyes behind twitching covers of flesh.

_'This fucking blows,' _he thought, cursing his weakness and vulnerability.

Hinges creaking, the door eased open, and Ed snapped his eyes open, heart pounding in his chest.

"Hello, Edward, I've come to play."

He looked at the man, unable to keep his breathing controlled and steady. He looked at the long smile that disappeared on the other side of the Ishbalan's cheek and shuddered as he imagined its rippled feel touching his skin like it had several times before. Looking at the malicious intent in the man's ruby-red eyes, Ed knew those chapped lips and that damaged cheek would soon be against his battered body.

"S-stay away from me," he managed to say, his throat incredibly dry, but the Ishbalan stepped closer; dangerously closer. A coldness swept over his body, chilling him to the bone, and fear pounded inside him with the flaming pain.

"Why in the world would I do_-ve come to see how you were doing._"

The room flickered and everything seemed to change. Dull light was replaced with a fluorescent white that pounded down on his vision. The masculine voice of the Ishbalan was covered by a voice so sweet, so full of concern; it was a woman's voice. But the hallucination was only just a flicker.

Tossed in confusion, he hadn't noticed the man step closer to him, and it was too late for him to do anything - not that there was even much he could have done - when he felt coarse, broken skin press against his forehead, then trail down to his lips. The kiss conquered him, stole every bit of energy from him as his body slumped against the bed.

"You taste so good," the Ishbalan murmured, licking his own lips. "Oh, the things I'm going to do to y_-ow are you feeling, Edward?_"

The kind voice. The bright light. The flicker of denial.

"What's happening?" he asked in a skeleton whisper, eyes shut and head back as he felt the familiar mouth nip at his slender neck.

"What isn't happening?" the Ishbalan countered smugly, letting a dark laugh fill the air.

Ed felt the man's calloused hand run down his side as he laughed. He hated that touch; so greedy and rough. The dark fingertips trailed between his legs where they fondled and cupped him, making a low groan vibrate in his throat.

"You're so cu_-ward? Can you hear me?_"

Lead fell upon his body as the man straddled his hips, rocking his groin to grind against his own maleness. After a second of that, he saw that the man wanted more, and the Ishbalan wrapped his sturdy fingers around his knees with a bruising force, prying his trembling legs apart.

An agonized scream tore from his throat as something solid and throbbing was pushed deep inside his body.

Then, he knew nothing more than darkness.

* * *

Roy Mustang folded his arms over his chest, a minute method to stop the sudden coldness of the room. His steps echoed as he descended the staircase, tossing back an eerie song of phantom vibrations.

When he reached the bottom, having counted twenty-three steps, he pushed against the metal door and stepped into a world of death.

"Got here all right?"

"Luckily," Roy replied as he joined his companion. "It's like Hell opened up out there."

Maes Hughes simply laughed a hollow laugh. "You're tellin' me. My hands are so tied up with this mess that I can barely move, but I was able to get free just long enough to do this." His voice dropped low, his tone grave as he continued, "Are you ready?"

The alchemist swallowed hard, his breath tumbling past his lips in a short burst. His tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, and his throat felt like sand, grainy and dry. Incapable of the gift of speech, he nodded his head.

"All right, come this way," Hughes said, stepping away to begin the journey to the grim destination.

The way there was silent, and although Roy hated it, he couldn't bring himself to interrupt the stagnant air with his muttered words. Besides, a single sound, his own footsteps, seemed to desecrate the peaceful sleep of the cold dead living in the dark cubbies of the walls.

Hughes stopped in front of a door, his hand clutching the steel handle, though he made no move to turn it.

"Roy, this...this isn't easy, and I understand if you want to turn back now."

"No, it's fine."

"The things they did to him..." Maes said, shaking his head and biting hard on his lower lip. "It isn't pretty."

"It's okay."

Maes Hughes sighed as he turned the handle and eased the door open. He stepped in first, flicking on a switch to illuminate the room with a bright light and giving easy view to the still body in the center of the room.

"Is that really him?" Roy asked softly, a slight quiver to his voice.

"Yes."

Roy took his time getting to the table where Alphonse Elric lay, a white sheet covering his hips to his knees. There were still bruises and torn flesh decorating his body, his entire torso singed and covered with blisters. The child's skin was almost gray and Roy knew it would feel like ice under his fingertips, if he even dared to place a hand upon his unaware body. Roy could count every rib, and his arms were so thin and brittle that he knew they would snap like twigs, but what really caught his attention, something he hadn't noticed before, were the black numbers on his right forearm: 05-2192. Ed was marked like that too. But what did it mean?

Something coiled inside him as he looked at the youthful face that was no longer able to smile. It was a hideous mix of anger and desperation, depression and concern. He wanted to cradle the small body in his arms and try to bring him back with soothing words. He wanted to lash out at the world, taking out every sorry son of a bitch who happened to be breathing as the child was not. He wanted to cry.

Crying. Yes, crying his heart out would be such a grand relief in the end. But it would be such a selfish cry, he knew. Crying just because he would never be able to hear the boy's voice again or see his brilliant gaze was so selfish, bordering pathetic. He wanted to cry, but could he?

"What did they do to him?" he whispered, shaking his head as his watering eyes slid shut.

"They _tortured _him, Roy. Isn't that obvious?" The man's voice was not his own as he spoke, for Roy knew Maes Hughes had never spoken with such malice and scorn. Speaking through clenched teeth, Hughes continued, "They beat him and mutilated him. Raped him."

"R-rape?" The simple word felt like a cruel, twisting stab to his heart. He knew that Ed had experienced that humiliating pain, but he had never once allowed himself to think that the same treatment had been thrown onto the younger brother.

"Repeatedly, and they...they didn't use only their bodies against him."

"What do you mean by that?" the alchemist asked, swallowing hard and dreading the reply.

"His insides were so torn up that..."

Roy's black eyes flickered down at his friend's side, each hand balled into a tight fist. He could almost feel the rage radiating off the man. Hughes had always been a family man, even before having a family of his own; he'd always cared for children, and Roy knew this heart-wrenching matter was tearing his friend apart, just as it was to himself.

"When will the funeral be?" Roy asked in an attempt to bring the subject somewhere safer.

"Tomorrow." The raven-haired man noticed the slight release in tension of the other man's posture. "I hate it, but it's going to be small and quick. There are going to be a lot of burials in the next few days."

"Maes, do you think Edward knows about this? About Al's death?" the alchemist asked after a moment of silence.

Hughes could only reply with a sad lift of his shoulders.

Roy felt his eyes begin to sting and water again, tears gathering in a desperate attempt to attack his cheeks with a wet coolness. He bit down on his bottom lip and bowed his head to hide his eyes, but Hughes saw this and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Take your time," he said, and Roy listened to his footsteps recede a second later and then disappear entirely.

He was alone and only then did he let the wet walls crumble down. Sobs threatened to choke him, lumping in his throat to keep him from breathing properly. His vision blurred and eyes burned. His body trembled, and his heart throbbed.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered brokenly, taking the boy's hand in his and holding it up to his cheek. It felt like he was holding ice against his skin. So cold.

Was it really so wrong to shed tears over such a tremendous loss? Was it really a selfish cry? No, it wasn't, and even if it was, he knew he wouldn't be able to stop the flood that ran down his cheeks.

Roy ran his hand down the Elric's arm and up again, sobbing uncontrollably as he begged forgiveness. After all, it was his fault. Alphonse Elric was dead because of him.

Time moved forward without him, and he wasn't sure how long he'd stayed stroking the boy's arm, crying until his eyes were itchy and dry.

He gentle placed Al's arm back at his side and leaned over his body. He brushed back dusky hair as he pressed his lips against the child's bruised forehead.

"I always saw you as a son, Alphonse," he whispered, "and I will always love you."

Roy rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as he straightened himself. He looked hard at the boy's face for what would be the last time, but something caught his attention, something that made him question what exactly had ended Al's life.

Horrific images worked themselves into his mind's theater and he forced himself to turn away with a shudder, leaving the question neglected.

He ascended the stairs with leaden steps, the coldness of the room still buried deep in his bones.

He needed to get back to the hospital, back to Edward.

If only he knew just how badly Edward Elric needed him.

* * *

**Kinda fell apart here and there, but -shrug- hope it's okay. Anyway, I need to give a special thanks to my future business partner for helping me with this! And instead of reading this piece of crap you're reading now, go read her fic; it's called Blue and her penname is Taranova. You won't be disappointed!!**


	9. Insanity

**So sorry I haven't updated in over a month! I feel really bad about that.**

**Anyway, at the beginning, just to make it clear, it's the docter and Riza in the room with Ed, who is very emotional (major moodswings).**

* * *

_Listen, ye sinners! _

"Get away from me, you bastards!"

_The great Leto is judging thee! _

"Docter, can't you do something?"

_Save thyself! Save thyself in the glorious arms of the Sun, of Leto! Our savior! _

"Edward, it's okay. You're just hallu-"

_Death is upon thee who does not accept righteousness in thy heart, thy soul._

"Fuck you!"

_Accept Leto and darkness will be forever cast away._

"Listen to me, Edward. You're safe. No one here is trying to hurt you."

_Accept Leto and fear shall no longer be known to thee._

"Liar! You've taken everything from me! What do you want from me this time, you motherfucker?"

_Accept Leto, the Sun, and life will be prosperous and bright._

"Answer me! My mind? My blood? My fucking body?"

_Accept Leto and thou shall not know Death._

The door creaked open, allowing old hinges to sing once more through rusting mouths. Attention turned, swiveled from the delusional blond to the dark-haired man standing at the threshold and the woman behind him. Silence, eerie and quaking with apprehension, fell down on the room, on the world, as Roy shot his gaze from face to face, finally resting on deranged eyes of amber. Understanding was far from him as he studied the young alchemist's face and body, but then everything started to turn, like gears once again working in a retired clock. The wide, pulsing eyes that burned against his body told him that Edward Elric was not seeing the world as it currently was. Edward Elric was gone. Far gone.

"How much longer?" Ed yelled, voice raised to a bone-shattering shriek as he tried to jerk himself free from his leather restraints. "How much longer are you going to keep me alive?"

Heart racing, Roy stepped forward, making his way to the bed with long, purposeful strides. Edward's eyes were locked onto his, watching his every move. Aureate gems flickered with hatred and passionate rage, and Roy knew in that moment that every bit of the blond's malice was being willed onto him. It was clear that Ed despised him, and Roy felt his heart twinge in sorrow as the thought entered his mind.

"Ishbalan scum, you can't kill me, can you? You don't have the guts," the blond growled, face twisted in spite. "Coward."

Roy pinched the tail of the leather restraint between two fingers. Without a single word, he pushed it back until the metal notch came undone and Edward's wrist, bony and bruised, was let free.

"What are you doing?" the doctor asked, taking a cautious step forward.

Roy didn't answer. He didn't have to. Instead, he moved down to release the blond's leg. Reached across. A second leg. A second arm. Freedom.

"Edward," he said softly, "it's okay. Do you know who I am?"

"S-stop."

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

"I'm Colonel Roy Mustang."

Tick. Tock.

Sanity's clock.

"Do you remember me?"

Tick...

Tock...

Game over.

"Stop playing with me!" Edward screamed. His voice faltered, plummeted from the cliff of pride and rebellion to the merciless waters of misery. Tears trailed down his cheeks, cold and wet. Evidence of his pain. "Just kill me. Please, just end it. My life, take it. Please. You've taken everything else from me, take this too!"

Sobs lodged in his throat. Trails of tears raced down his cheek. Body curled tightly on itself. Blood cut through the bandage on his shoulder. Wound open. Pain searing.

Pathetic misery.

Pathetic existence.

Insanity's ruling.

Insanity's victory.

"Kill me," he whispered in a shuddering voice as he pulled his knees to his chest. He felt cold. Alone and cold.

But warmth enveloped him, smothered his soul. He looked up with disbelieving eyes and then buried his head in her soft lap.

"I'm sorry, Mom," he sobbed, his tears spotting Gracia Hughes' stomach and lap. "Please forgive me. I let this happen. Please, say you still love me. Please, I need to hear you say that. I need to know. Mom, please."

"Edward," she whispered, squeezing his trembling body tightly against hers, "I love you."

And she did.

As she stroked his hair and whispered words of comfort to him, she wondered how she'd been able to make her legs move forward from the door. The moment she saw the blond, she'd been locked in fear, but the moment she heard him say two very simple words, she'd gathered every ounce of strength and rushed forward, pushing the metal railing down and taking him in her arms. If being Edward's mother was what it would take to calm him down, then so be it. She loved him just as much as she loved her own child.

She gave him all of her strength.

Minutes went by, bled into a long hour of heartache. The tower bell a mile away was on its third resonating chime. A fourth. A fifth. A sixth. Silence.

Gracia reluctantly eased the boy down on the bed. He was asleep, peacefully so. He looked happy in his dreams, or maybe there were no dreams. A kind smile caressed her lips as she stroked his sticky cheek with the back of her hand, slowly bending down to place a matronly kiss on his warm forehead.

"What happened?" she asked as she turned away from the boy, her voice hardly above a whisper.

"I just came to see how he was doing, but he was acting strange," Riza Hawkeye replied. "He was saying things, things that didn't make any sense, and then he screamed and passed out. I got the doctor, but when he started touching Ed, he woke up in hysterics. He'd been yelling like that for nearly fifteen minutes before you two came."

"Do you think he'll ever get better?" Gracia questioned, looking hopefully at Riza then at Roy. The doctor had left to return to his work quite some time ago, leaving only the military duo before her.

Riza said nothing, and all Roy could do was shrug, his black eyes fixated on the blond's rising chest.

"Well," Gracia said with a soft sigh, "I guess I should be heading back home. I promised the babysitter I would be back by five-thirty, but it's already past six o'clock. If there's any way I can be of help, then please let me know."

"Okay, let me walk you home," Roy said, stepping to her side.

"No, it's quite all right. I highly doubt that priest is still out there," she replied.

While Roy was walking back to the hospital, he came across a priest standing high on stacked boxes, yelling out to the crowd around him about Leto and the judgement that was falling upon society. In the crowd, majority cheering at the priest's every word, was Gracia Hughes, who had somehow been locked in the middle. Spotting her, Roy shoved his way through and rescued her, and once out of the crowd, she told him that she had been on her way to see Edward in the hospital.

"No, Maes would kill me if anything were to happen to you out there."

"I suppose you're right."

"Colonel, I'll take her home," Riza said. "Edward needs you here. Besides, I haven't seen Elysia in a good while."

Roy chewed on his bottom lip as he thought. Of course, Riza was a very strong woman, and she was more than capable of taking care of herself and those around her. Surely she would be fine going there and coming back.

"Fine," he said, "but stay alert and don't dawdle."

"Yes, sir."

After the two women left, easing the door shut behind them, Roy slumped down in the chair next to the bed. A deep, heavy sigh painted his lips in an airy warmth as his head pressed back against the headrest, eyes sliding shut.

What a fucked up world.

* * *

"Here, sir. This is the last of the files from the Ishbalan-Xing encampment. Translated and ordered according to date, just like you asked," Schiezka said, placing the large stack of papers on Maes Hughes' desk.

"Thank you," he said. He waited until the mousy woman was gone before taking the stack in his hands and scanning his green eyes over the text.

While investigating the catacombs, countless files and reports had been recovered, but majority of them were written in the language of the Xing people. Luckily, the papers had been translated and copied in record speed.

Hughes realized immediately what he was looking at; the paper in his hand was solely about the journey of one victim. It listed everything that they'd done to the man in fine detail. The experiments they conducted on him and his responses to them. The drugs used. Everything he said or did. Maes looked down at the bottom-right corner and found something that struck the cord of familiarity. Numbers. A code, perhaps?

"98-0379," he said to himself. "What does that mean?"

He turned the pages until the numbers changed and changed again, the date residing at the top coming closer to the current day.

"05-2192?"

His green eyes took in every stroke of ink, his heart booming in his chest as he realized he was reading of the horrors that had befallen Alphonse Elric.

_"You really are such a good boy. I might even have to reward you. No screaming. No thrashing about. Nothing! Perfect, little angel!" the Ishbalan said, cocking his head to the side to catch eyes with his docile captive. Smiling his broken smile, he threw the boy in a room, a room which would crumble with the delight of what things its walls would see and hear. The boy didn't curse or even try to save himself as he crashed to the cold floor. There was a cracking sound upon that impact, a very distinct sound of cracking bone. Something had broken. Shame. He'd really wanted him in top physical condition for the tests, but because the boy didn't cry out against the pain, he knew the mental condition was right where he needed it to be. _

_The kid was broken. Like a toy._

_Just one bad wheel on the train, that was all._

_But the name of the game this go around:_

_Break all of the wheels._

_A hollow laugh fell off his lips as he kicked the boy on his back and realized how much fun he was going to have even before the experiments began. He dropped himself on his captive's small, bony hips, rocking his aching crotch against the boy's body. His lips pressed against the boy's. Conquered him. Claimed him. He was winning, and he liked to win._

_But every human being liked to win._

_He grabbed a handful of gritty hair and forced their gazes to meet. Alphonse Elric, he realized, was no longer the same Alphonse Elric he'd been a minute ago._

_Bright steel pounded fiercly in his youthful gaze, giving him the appearance of finite strength and rebellion._

_Alphonse Elric was now Edward Elric._

_Preposterous!_

_"Get off me," the boy growled, barring his yellow teeth._

_Oh, if that didn't seal the deal._

_"You really are brothers," the Ishbalan said, grinning. "But I fucked him too."_

_Laughing wildly, the Ishbalan slammed Al's head against the floor. He laughed as fingers wrapped around his wrists. One finger, he saw, was broken, bent away from the others. A pinky finger. He would have to fix it for him. After all, he always made sure to be an excellent host._

_He grabbed his captive's hand, tore it from his wrist. Delight ran up his spine as the boy began to struggle underneath, fought to jerk his hand free, threatened and yelled. He grabbed the small finger and pulled it toward him, straightening it. The delight intensified as the boy screamed. It was an amazing sound. So beautiful. So intense. He could feel the boy's pain, feel his every sorrow, feel his resolve crumble as the sound faded._

_"You bastard! You fucking son of a bitch," the boy yelled, hot tears rolling down his cheeks. He could tell how foreign the sinful words were to the boy's lips, how the boy had trouble making his mouth form the correct shapes necessary. It was quite amusing, really. Especially once the combination of words became nothing more than a rambling of new sins._

_He allowed the boy to continue his threats and curses, allowed him to fling his arms and legs, allowed him to think he had a chance at an escape. Just like he'd done with his brother._

* * *

A groan rumbled in his throat as he forced his eyes to open, fear seizing him at the unknown. What would he see when he opened his eyes? What would happen? He raised his head from the pillow and looked forward, eyes moving from side to side with lazy sweeps. He was alone. The doctor wasn't there. Roy Mustang wasn't there. Roy Mustang? Had the man really been there?

Ed tossed his gaze in wild directions. And smiled.

It was a hospital room. A fucking hospital room!

He'd been saved!

But.

His smiled faded, snatched from his lips by the crooked hands of misery.

But Alphonse hadn't been saved.

Tears stung his eyes as his mind flew back to the last time he'd seen his little brother, a merciless sweep of cruel images and sounds.

How many times had that happened?

Rubbing his eyes, he lowered his feet to the floor. Slowly, he shuffled across the floor. Not tile. Not linoleum. Some weird thing in between.

By the time he flicked on the light in the bathroom, his tears had faded like his smile. He shut the door, closing himself in from a world that was so unforgiving. No one could hurt him in there. No one could take anything else away from him. He was safe from every horror of the world. Except from himself.

Edward turned the faucet knob, running his fingers under the cold waterfall. How long had it been since he'd last felt something so magical?

The sound of the fast water hitting the white ceramic comforted him, so he left it on as he turned away.

A shudder shook in his throat as he caught sight of something that did not ring with the pleasantries of peace and normality. A full-length mirror raced down the back of the door, tossing back some image of a small _thing_. He stared at the thing looking back at him for quite some time, the waterfall behind him covering every thought in his head. With great difficulty, he reached behind him and untied the back of his hospital gown, watched as it seemed to float to the floor.

Tears met him again as he knew the person looking back at him was himself. He looked at his body, covered in bruises and cuts. There was a white bandage on his shoulder and he tore it away, unveiling something ugly and the even uglier memories that went with it.

His wet eyes trailed down his body, falling over his shapeless abs, protruding hips, and his . . .

Sobs choked him as his eyes stayed on that one spot, that one fucking spot. He'd hurt someone with that. Hurt someone really bad with it. But who? Who had he hurt? And why? He couldn't remember. He couldn't fucking remember. Who? Damn it, who?

He clawed at his chest, desperate to dig his heart out. Maybe the answer would be there.

Sounds built upon sounds in his head, the waterfall nothing more than background noise. Out of place in the hellish scenery. Moans and screams joined more moans and more screams, giving life to touch. Enveloping heat. Curling fingers in his back. Touch to vision. Trembling flesh. Dripping sweat. A face.

"Alphonse."

His fist flew forward, cracking against his reflected self. Glass dug into his knuckles and fingers. Large chunks fell to the ground. A different waterfall.

One large piece. Jagged. Made just for him.

He took it in his palm, squeezed it tight until he could feel warm blood run down his wrist, hear it drip on the floor.

The play was still going strong in his head, all actors right on cue. Perfection. An award-winning performance. But he'd been forced to perform. He'd been forced to attack the innocent body with his only weapon.

He watched in what was left of the mirror, watched as he grabbed his flaccid length in his free hand. He watched as he brought the shard of glass down on the shaft. Watched as he attacked himself as he had attacked his brother.

Over and over.

Blood dripping down in a crimson rain.

Pain running through every nerve.

Mind begging him to stop.

Mind begging him to finish.

"Pale white and black with false citrine, imperfect white and red . . ."

The words met his lips, tumbled into the air.

"The peacock's feathers in bright colors . . ."

His world began to fade.

"The rainbow in the sky above, the spotted panther . . ."

Breathing a task. Consciousness a chore.

"The green lion, the crow and beak, blue as lead . . ."

Blood, thick and bright blood. Everywhere.

"They shall appear befo-"

Darkness.

* * *

**I would like to mention now that anytime a character finds out about what happened to Al, it will be presented as a flashback instead of showing what the character is reading or thinking. This is why it went into a flashback when Hughes was reading the paper. I think it's more fun to read that way. It's definitely more fun (or is it funner? o.o) to write! And just so you know, what is in the flashback is what they're reading. Like, on the paper it would have been written out that Al broke his finger, blah-blah-blah. Is this making any sense? :o**

**Oh! And Hughes doesn't know what Ed's tattoo number thingy is on his arm, otherwise he would have stopped and read Ed's report thingy instead of skipping over it (remember: they were dated and ordered according to date; Ed's number would have popped up before Al's).**

**Anyway, poor Edo. At least he finally realized that he wasn't a captive anymore, though I doubt that realization would be that sudden in reality. Spare me and go with it :p haha**

**But yeah, please review? Yeah, please review! Thanks so much for all of the reviews and support so far! :D**


	10. Cantata

**_Uh-oh, sorry for the double-same-chapter-update. I had a mishap while doing some editing 0.o Sorry!_**

**This chapter is bit odd, but things are finally beginning to come out. I would like to say right now that the three main characters in this chapter (Roy, Riza, and Hughes) are all out of character. Hughes is especially out of character, but do keep in mind all the things he knows about Al and the situation as a whole. Roy has a reason to be OOC, and Riza has pretty much just had enough, and I don't blame her or Hughes for getting out of sorts with all that's been going on. Oh! I would also like to say that I fell in love with the last chapter haha and thus removed my oh-so negative author's note.**

**Uh, somehow this chapter got a bit one liner-y and spaced out, which I'm not entirely sure is a good thing. Ah, hell.**

**Anyway, enjoy.**

* * *

Death hung in the air like cigarette smoke to curtains. The evidence of man's latest sin lay hidden deep in the soil, tucked away in satin-lined caskets. The smashed frames of jumpers and mutilated faces of trigger-happy citizens were at last out of sight. Not out of mind. Their presence was still there, giving every hallway the eerie feeling of being watched by watchless eyes.

Roy was a simple man. He didn't believe in the supernatural. Ghosts and the unquiet dead were nothing more than stories of the deranged to him, God and Lucifer included. Such things did not exsist, and this he knew.

But that suffocating presence of the dead, that uneasy feeling of being watched, shrouded his resolve, made his heart race in his chest at every turn into a new hallway. His beliefs on the supernatural were beginning to change with every step he took, every second he spent where death had scourged the ground black.

The hallway was devoid of life. No nurses or doctors cluttered the space. If there were patients behind the closed doors he passed, he didn't know it. Where was everyone?

The thought that he was the only living person in the hospital whispered in his mind.

That couldn't be right. Not at all.

It screamed at him.

But what if it was right? What if every fucking soul had vanished?

Black burns on the soil.

"Edward?" he called out, his shaking hand wrapping around a door knob and throwing it open.

Emptiness.

Another door tried.

"Riza? Where are you? Please, come out. Please!"

Another hope crushed.

Just him. Alone. Just him. No one. Solitude.

He panicked as he realized that he really was the only one left. The only fucking person left in the world. But he knew that they would be coming for him soon. They would take him away like everyone else.

They?

The ghosts.

God.

The Reaper.

Fuck, every fucking thing he didn't believe in!

Tears burned him, burned his dignity. He was afraid to die. Terrified. His heart ran from him as he clung to the wall for support, the floor quaking in a threat of collapse.

_Sinner! Sinner!_

Voices. No, a voice. One voice.

_You've caused this, Roy Mustang. Despicable._

It spoke with low hisses, laughed with wild menace.

_All of this turmoil is your fault. You did this. You're the reason why this world suffers._

"Sh-shut up," he pleaded, voice riddled with cracks.

_Come with me, sinner. Take my hand, and throw your pains away._

A weight built upon him, and he snapped his gaze upward. He saw it. Saw Him.

"It c-can't be."

The Fallen Angel. It had to be.

_Take my hand, Roy Mustang, and serve me._

He swallowed hard as he made to grab the outstretched hand.

What the fuck was he doing?

_That's right, sinner. For eternity. Be mine._

Lucifer's hand squeezed around his, seared his flesh and his mind. Raped his soul.

He screamed.

"Roy! No!"

The voice cut through the darkness, threw away his mistake as a tightness circled his wrist. His mind jolted back to reality, the scalpel sliding out of his grip and ringing against the floor. A small droplet of blood dripped down from his free wrist and splattered in all directions as it hit the white floor. Only one part of the masterpiece that could have been. Should have been.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Riza asked in an unusual voice of rage, teeth clenched tightly together as she threw her superior's hand out of hers.

Roy couldn't answer, disbelief and confusion grasping his mind and tossing away his voice. The only thing he found he could do was look at where the fallen scalpel lay, a spot of red next to it, shining under the light. Had he really tried to take his own life?

"Answer me, dammit!"

Then he remembered the ominous figure towering over him and reaching out to take him away. He remembered his life ending in agony the moment he touched the crawling flesh.

"R-Riza, I saw Him. I _touched _Him."

"Him?"

"The Devil, Riza. He told me to t-take his hand, and I did. I didn't want to, but I did. He's _real_."

Something wet and hot rolled down his cheeks as he bit down hard on his bottom lip to hide the choking sobs that begged life. He grabbed Riza's hands, held them tightly in his.

He wasn't alone. He wasn't the only one left. And touching her gave him the strength he needed to believe there was still hope for himself and mankind.

The anger in her faded as she realized the situation was deeper than she'd first thought. She'd heard someone call Edward's name, followed by her own; the voice was broken and pathetic, but when she saw Roy Mustang running down the hall in a fit of blindness, she rushed forward, knowing that something was wrong. He threw open a door and bolted inside, a small closet where surgical tools were kept, and she followed him in the room. Her blood curdled at the scream.

"What happened?" she asked, voice softening.

How could he answer that? He didn't even know for sure what he saw was the truth. And for a fleeting moment he knew he'd had the first glimpse of what living in insanity was like. He was crawling in that direction, he knew. He was going insane. Or was he?

"I don't know," he said, giving her hands a tight squeeze as his tears fell on her knuckles. He was terrified to die, but now he was terrified of himself.

Minutes went by in silence, the only sound being Roy's sniffling. It was so strange to hear the man make those sounds and see him cry. She couldn't recall the last time she'd seen her superior shed tears; he was too prideful for that. But he was only human, and every human threw away dignity when emotions grew too intense to handle.

"Roy," she whispered, taking her hands out of his to gentle lift his face, "I want you to go home, okay? I want you to go home and get in your bed."

"But what about E-"

"Don't worry, I'll look after Fullmetal. As soon as you wake up and feel better, you can come back. All right?"

Roy was just tired, that was all. The extreme lack of proper sleep had caused him to hallucinate, pressed him to do something his pride couldn't fight against. She knew he just needed a good night's sleep in his bed. That was the solution to the situation, because she couldn't accept the truth. She couldn't accept that she'd just watched her friend try to kill himself.

What if she hadn't been there to see? What if she'd arrived just a moment too late?

She shuddered at the thought, exhaling sharply as she took his hand to look at the red smear on his wrist. "But first, let's take care of this," she said, extending her free hand past Roy to take a roll of gauze from a shelf.

"I'm sorry, Riza."

"No, it's okay," she said with a small smile, wrapping the long strip of cloth around his wrist. "Everything's going to be okay."

* * *

_"Be a good boy and stay still."_

_"W-wh-"_

_"And quiet," the Ishbalan said as he grabbed the boy's thin arm and punctured his flesh with the tip of the needle, pushing down on the plunger with his thumb. A grin met him as he watched his captive tense and yelp, the yellow liquid joining his bloodstream. _

_A minute passed and the boy went limp in the chair he was bound to. He wasn't dead or unconscious. Perfectly aware of his surroundings._

_"Now, listen to me, Al," he said, crouching down to look up at the boy's fallen gaze, "we're going to try to hurt you, and you need to let us know when we succeed. Just scream when you start to feel pain, okay? Just scream your little lungs out, all right?"_

_The boy replied with only a deep throaty sound, but that was satisfying enough. Smiling, he cupped an angled cheek, the bone defined and pronounced from starvation. Tilting back his captive's head, he leaned forward, brushing his tongue across broken lips. Still delicious. He stared hard in the steel eyes as he trailed his hand down to fondle the boy's flaccid length; he stroked the organ, pet it with a childlike interest._

_"You can't feel this, can you?" he murmured, then smiled wickedly as he brought his lips down on the head. Gently, almost passionately, he licked and sucked on the boy, nibbled his way farther down the shaft. The boy's length stayed limp in his mouth, not even giving a twitch of life. The little bastard really couldn't feel a damn thing!_

_He detached himself from his captive just as the door was creaking open and his assistants, two Ishbalan men and one Xing woman, entered. They would make sure that the experiment carried on until the desired results were reached._

_"All right, I guess we can begin," he said, smiling. "Get the wa-"_

"Excuse me, sir, but you have a call."

"Tell them to call back later," Hughes growled, exhaustion making him irritable, not to mention what he was reading. He often had to stop with shaking hands and start on someone else's horrors, someone whose face he didn't know and whose name was nonexistent.

"Sir, it's Lieutenant Hawkeye, and she says it's urgent," Shiezka said uneasily.

The moment he heard the words, he snatched the phone off the receiver, switching it to the line where Riza was on hold. If Riza said something was urgent, then it was.

"Riza? . . . No, I- . . . What? . . . Where's Roy? . . . I'm leaving now."

"Sir?"

"Shiezka, go home," he said quickly, rushing past her and leaving his office.

He ran all the way to the hospital.

When he got there, Riza was waiting for him, her eyes wide and glistening. Wet clay.

"They won't tell me anything," she said, her voice like cracked porcelain. "And they-"

"Hang on," he muttered, taking in a deep breath. He hadn't ran that far and that fast in years, and his heart was beating with vengeance against his chest. A minute passed before he straightened himself and placed his gaze on the blonde, asking for what had happened.

"When I went to see Ed, he wasn't there," she replied, shifting uneasily on one foot. How unusual of her. "All they told me was that he had to be taken to surgery."

"You told me on the phone that Roy was at home, right?"

"Yes."

"Good, he can't know about this yet."

"Why?"

"Think about it," he said as he began walking down the hall. "If Roy found out that something was wrong with Ed, he'd come here and raise seven kinds of hell. The place would be torn apart until he saw him. And after that, Roy would never want to leave Ed's side ever again. So for now, we'll just let the Colonel have his peaceful sleep. He deserves it, I think."

With Riza following behind him, Maes walked down the hall with every intention of stopping a doctor or nurse to question the situation surrounding Edward Elric. However, something better went wheeling by. Edward himself.

Hughes stopped at the end of the hallway as a gurney slowly crossed in front of him. Unconscious on the gurney was Ed, a white sheet covering his body and two tubes running to his arm, one tube holding what looked like blood and the other holding what couldn't be seen. And on that arm was a black line, an unnatural blur that looked so damn familiar.

He watched the gurney disappear in a room.

Nodding, he turned around and made his way to a bench against the wall. He sat down and motioned for Riza to sit next to him.

"What are we doing?" Riza whispered, confused.

"We're waiting. They probably won't even tell me anything, so we're going to wait and find out on our own."

* * *

"Oh, God," she gasped, her trembling hand clasping over her mouth as hot tears fled her eyes. The screams were still ringing in the air, invading her ears with a tremendous cruelty.

She should have done as she'd been told. She should have left. Should have gone home.

But damn, all of those files. New and begging to be read. Out in the open for all eyes to see.

She couldn't possibly turn away from them.

More screams.

She'd read an entire stack of files, but when she went to start on a new one, she found something nestled between the papers.

More taunts.

It was a small black box. An audio tape.

More cruel laughs.

Her curiosity had gotten the better of her.

More sobs.

The sounds intensified, vibrated against the speakers. Overwhelmed, she quickly turned the volume knob at the top of the cassette player. The agonized voice of the boy faded away and so did the man's low and torturous words.

Schiezka left the office with Alphonse Elric's screams playing in her mind.

* * *

"Come on," Hughes said a few minutes after the nurses had left Ed's room.

There was no one in sight, but that didn't mean no one was nearby by or wouldn't turn around the corner at any moment. Quickly, they ducked into the room before the chance of that risk was too high.

It was dark, the only light coming from the screen of the heart monitor next to the bed. Green light. The machine gave a small beep with Ed's every heart beat—the sound of life.

"What happened?" Riza whispered, disbelief and shock clouding her mind as she looked down at the boy.

Hughes grabbed the clipboard that hung from the foot of the bed. A vague pain built inside him as he read the paper, and his eyes squeezed shut as he passed it to Riza.

"Why would he do something like this?" she ask, her hand covering her eyes. She was breaking, crumbling under the weight of reality. Years she'd spent hiding her fears and sorrows behind a mask of calm. The mask, beautiful and serene, fragile and timeless, was cracking.

"Shame."

"What?"

"Shame. He did it out of shame," Hughes said with a heavy sigh as he lowered himself in the bulky chair next to the bed. He set his gaze on the boy, mind flitting with the truth. It was obvious. A swan among geese.

So beautiful, yet so, so vicious.

"He was ra-"

"Don't you dare say it."

"Why not? To not say it would be denial," he said lowly, face twisted. What had made him so cold? Maybe he was breaking too. Maybe the world would just crack one day with him and he would fall, plummet through the dark abyss below. "He was raped. He enjoyed it. Shame leads mutilation, which brings us here. It adds up, doesn't it?"

"Maes, how can you say that?" Riza asked through clenched teeth, her fists tightening at her sides. This wasn't Maes Hughes before her; the man she knew would never speak in such uncaring tones.

"To not say it would be denial," he repeated.

As the silence grew, she realized that Maes Hughes was wearing a mask just as she was. He was hiding his soft emotions behind it, like she had been trying to do. His mask was in place and secured.

Tie it tight.

_Not tightly enough._

"Damn," she muttered, dropping her gaze. Her own mask came undone, fell from her and slipped out of grasp. She lost the battle of calm, of hidden emotion. She lost. "Why didn't we see this coming, Maes? Why couldn't we stop this? Why did th-"

"If you'd known any of this were to happen, what would you have done, Riza Hawkeye? What _could _you have done? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Life's a vicious, vicious thing. Hiding corruption and despair under gilded beauty. But the funny thing is, we're the ones who made it that way." He sighed as his words met him. He was being entirely too harsh. "I'm sorry. This whole thing is just starting to take me down with it."

"Do you think things will get better, Hughes?" she asked after a few seconds spent in awkward silence.

"Well I certainly can't see how things can get any worse," he replied, laughing lightly. Oh, how very wrong he was. "Come on, I think we should leave."

"Yeah."

As Riza left, Hughes walked over to the other side of the bed. He gently raised the sleeve of Ed's gown and nodded. Before turning away, he brushed his palm against the blond's cheek with a great sigh and wondered if there really was something that could have been done to prevent such damage. What was the small detail that had gone by unnoticed, the small thing that had tried to scream at them with warnings of the future? Hell, it didn't really matter.

He stepped out into the hall, gently closing the door behind him. After parting with Riza, he decided he had to get back to his office, and so he silently begged forgiveness from Gracia as he walked in the cool night.

The sky was beautiful. So, so beautiful. A million diamonds strewn across a sheet of dark satin, a silver brooch holding everything in place. The stars winked at him, giving a peculiar sense of life to the late heavens. They twinkled, moved across the soft background that was no less beautiful. Eyes to the sky, he smiled as he began to hum an old nusery rhyme, one he couldn't wait to sing to Elysia again.

* * *

Running his fingers through his hair, he sat down at his desk, taking a stack of files in his hands. He'd found it odd that the lights had been left on, which was unlike Schiezka, but he figured that it had simply slipped her mind. He shrugged the thought off, deciding that it was another thing that didn't really matter.

"10-03-10," he muttered as he flipped through the papers. "10-0310...10-0310...Where are you?...Ah!"

He took a deep breath and shut his eyes before reading a single word of the report. When he opened his eyes, he wondered if Ed's file would tell a more gruesome tale. There was only one way to find out. He began to read.

Minutes ticked by with the words he passed. A quiet relief cloaked him as he continued, for what had happened to Ed didn't read as horrendously as what had happened to Al. It was still terrible and he couldn't even begin to imagine the pain Ed had felt while undergoing the experiments, but the tale didn't make his body ice over. It didn't make him want to hate. It didn't make him want to fight against the world.

The paper floated out of his grasp as he reached for the continuing page, but a sudden sound from behind made him jump in his chair, heart racing. He swiveled around and saw that it was only the cassette player rewinding the tape inside it. He chided himself for his childish fear.

But what tape was inside the box? And why had the cassette player been left on in the first place?

He watched the black film turn back inside the small cassette until it was finished, giving a loud click before unwinding itself once again. He waited to hear something, but no sound came through the speakers. It was then that he realized the volume had been turned down all the way. How strange.

He turned it up.

And regretted it.


	11. Angels

**Been way too long! AH! Sorry :(**

**Anyway, lets go over some things:**

**-This chapter contains religious content. No offense to anyone.**

**-Implanted throughout the beginning half of this chapter are hidden messages, and if you find them all, then you win! There are five or six, and here's a hint: Italics and to the left**

**-The ending isn't written all too well. Odd dialogue and bad/unclear transitions. I was rushing through it 'cause I was getting antsy and whatnot. M'bad.**

**-If you're confused about anything, don't worry! Everything's going to come to light eventually! Or if you ask me extra nicely I might just tell you haha**

**-Super special thanks to Taranova for all of the help! Really, without her, this chapter would not exist! Seriously, I would have quit! But she didn't let me, and for that, lets all thank her! THANK YOU!**

**-Please review!**

**That's it :)**

* * *

Misery had become his currency for life, his means of day-to-day life. It followed him like an addiction, a damn drug that was so warm in his pretty veins, like the morphine coursing through him.

It was deep inside him, gnawing at his nerves with hot teeth, grinding down the sharp edges of agony to dull blades of pain. Ruining his thoughts. God, _destroying_ his thoughts.

Spotted panthers. The green lion. Crow. Beak. Blue as lead. Blood, there. Where? Everywhere.

Everything was fading away, shooting back, fading away, shooting back. Bright stars danced in his mind, swirling around the black haze of a demonic ash no priest could ever rid him of. They lightened the darkness, wonderfully so, to reveal the peacock's feathers and the rainbow in the sky above.

Ramblings of these visions puttered from his dry lips like hollow nothings. Meaningless words of someone teetering between sanity and insanity.

Yielding and moving, then stopping completely. Up and down, back and forth. Every direction and none at all. Sanity and insanity, the fine line between them was abused and cracked, _dead_, like him.

Imperfect white and red. _Dead like who? Al? No, not dead. Where is he?_

Sky above. _Liar._

Forever and always. _No such thing._

Others fell, too. _Then not him._

Red stains on your soul. _No no no!_

Evidence on your fingertips. _Only others. No, not him! Not me!_

Vibrant red, the shade of blood. _Perfect white and with many others…in bright colors…_

Everywhere red. _Pale white and black…the substance…the substance…not him!_

Remember the pain. _False citrine…lies…false citrine…false…not him!_

"I'm sorry," he said, words torn as sobs rattled in his chest and tears cascaded down his ashen face.

His hands hurt.

* * *

"I had a dream," he whispered to the black-haired man before him. Roy looked in the man's eyes to see red snakes slithering through the snow; the bright fluorescent lights above cast a white glare, giving the man's eyes a glassy, lifeless sheen. For a brief moment, he wondered if he were talking to man at all.

Hell, it _would_ be easier to talk to a doll.

He cleared his throat, his long fingers trailing through his neglected hair. "I had a dream," he repeated, voice still to a careful whisper. "A little girl… She was burning in a fire. S-she was trying to scream, but her lungs had already melted in her tiny chest. They—shit, all of her insides—were pouring out of her mouth."

He paused to see the man look back at him with a deep sadness swirling in his doll-like eyes, and Roy knew his story, though short, had already snipped the delicate strings of fatherly love and care every man possessed.

"Her skin was dripping down on her teddy bear like paint."

Vivid images built in Roy's mind, etching a deep frown on his face, and he noticed his companion sporting the same distraught creases in every feature of his visage. He wanted to forget the dream, but since the hours of his waking, he could not. Speaking of it, he felt, was the only way to let it go.

"But it didn't stain or burn," he added after a shaky intake of air. "The teddy bear, I mean. Even as it laid in her ashes, it was untouched by all that _grime_."

He shook his head, a humorless chuckle rattling in his throat.

"Ashes. Those weren't ashes, not at all. One big puddle of…of… Fuck, I don't even know. Blood, bones, and organs, I guess."

Roy shrugged, and the man shrugged, too, perhaps in agreement.

"I don't know," he said with a sigh, looking away from the man for a brief second. "I had a dream."

He looked at the man, smiled, and said, "Fuck 'em."

With that, he took hold of the cabinet and pulled its glass top away, revealing three shelves of pill bottles and various hygiene products. He grabbed a stout, white bottle, popped the cap, and palmed two capsules. Taking a plastic cup from the top shelf, he filled it with water from the vanity faucet. With the aid of the cold and crisp water, he swallowed the two pills.

He shut the cabinet door, his visitor returning with a smile creased on his porcelain face. Roy placed his fingers gently on the man's cheek, returning the smile.

"Thanks for listening," he said softly. "I owe you."

Sighing, he turned away from the mirror, his reflection sliding from the glass to appear as a blurred shadow on the wall. There was a black waste bin against the wall, and in it was a bloodstained bandage from the day before; there was a dark mark on his wrist, far from healed. He wondered what his companion on the wall thought of that soiled gauze. It didn't matter, he decided. The day before may as well had been a dream, a dream he was casting away.

On his way out of the bathroom, he flicked the light-switch, and the room—white linoleum, white walls, white porcelain—fell to absolute darkness. He shut the door.

Fake tiles changed to a soft carpet that filled the spaces between his toes like sand. His eyes coasted lazily down the hallway as he tried to decide where to go; he was tempted to stretch out on the sofa, remote in hand, and not give another thought to anything beyond the flickering screen. However, he knew there was work to be done at Central Command. And of course, there was Edward.

His body stiffened as the boy's simple name rose in his mind like a ghostly whisper. The stench of the cell—blood, sex, the burning of sand and skin—met his nose in an odd remembrance of that day.

He had failed, failed horribly. He had promised, swore on his life, to save two souls, and he knew he was barely succeeding in saving one.

"_I_ don't know," he said absently, his breath hot and heavy against his lips. He looked at the brown carpet, saw a dead fly—_killed _by only the grand laws of nature—nestled between the long yarns. Death seemed to follow _him_ everywhere, cloak him with its black body.

He stared at the small creature, the minute decay of its body sifting through the air to reach beyond the five senses. Death filled his nose and mouth; he could hear the black haze ringing, see it growing, feel it tingling against his fingertips. Beyond those five senses, stretching to a rare sixth, Death found his soul, that intangible myth that made a human so valuable, so easy to destroy.

He shook his head.

Immaculate was the world of his dreams, a world free of the black burns of death and decay. However, a man could not live in such a world, for life could not be without death.

Fetus in the womb, rotting. Death in life, life in death; the never-ending cycle that swallowed the world in every way. He was at the center.

Artists of the past depicted such grand laws, labeled them with care and thoughtfulness, or disdain and scorn. He had seen it.

Imagination, however, could only carry the mind so far when caught between the threads of a canvas. He had seen this as well.

Life was complex, he knew, filled with twists and turns that could not be studied or predicted, known to any extent (much less portrayed in a painting). The only certain aspect of living, if one chose to _live _at all, was death; the end of the beginning, and perhaps the beginning of the end.

Epitaphs of "true believers" spoke of such promises—acceptance to the celestial realm of God, where man could fly. Those silly engravings spoke of outlandish guarantees of a pain-free, fruitful life beside God and all those halo-crowned creatures. Would Alphonse Elric's stone grant the same promises? He did not know.

Dolorous thoughts cracked his mind deeper as the new name came forth. That boy, does he have wings, like Michael or Gabriel? Does he stand beside God as an archangel of purity and innocence? His snowy wings a gift for all the good he'd done while grounded?

Roy didn't, couldn't, believe in those images for himself. He had never found comfort in religion, though he had sought the scripture of different cultures throughout his life. Regardless of his personal beliefs, he could not imagine that young boy not living past his final breath.

There was comfort, a distant warmness, to believing that boy was in a better place, a place devoid of pain and blood, devoid of all the horrors he had faced while alive.

"_Al_?" he called out softly, the simple nickname rolling off his tongue with an unexplainable amount of foreignness. "Are you there, Al?"

There _was_ no reply, which Roy expected, yet could not comprehend—when you speak out to the dead, God allows their reply.

The fly was poorly buried—_killed_ only

_by_ the grand laws of nature

He looked at its decaying body between the yarns. Called out again _…_

"Alphonse, are you there?"

Nothing.

"Alph—"

The phone rang.

* * *

He clenched his fists. His fingers burned and ached.

They were red, very red. Bloodstained and so very ugly.

His past, that unchangeable story, was on his fingertips.

It was burning him

_Al_ive.

Burning him

_Dead_.

He clenched his fists. His fingers burned and ached.

Bloodstained, yet no blood showed.

Hallucinations of the past, that unchangeable story.

Regret? No.

Regret? Yes.

That unchangeable story.

"Pale white and black with false citrine, imperfect white and red . . . "

His hands hurt.

* * *

It screamed at him, over and over, desperate for attention. But he found himself unable to do anything other than stand and stare, mouth wide and breath uneven. However, the black phone was relentless in its attempts, as it kept crying out its wailing plea.

The dead couldn't talk - no lips, no tongue, no teeth.

He snatched the phone from its cradle mid-ring and placed it do his ear. On the other side, all he heard was soft, easy breathing.

Time was passing by without any words exchanged, and Roy could no longer think so superstitiously.

No lips, no tongue, no teeth. To talk.

"Hello?" he asked into the receiver, cool and smooth against his cheek.

"Roy, hey, it's me. Listen, I just wanted to let you know that the funeral's at three, Vinton Cemetery."

The voice was both familiar and foreign. He knew the man, knew him well, but there was a strange waver to the familiar voice, something off-putting and irregular. Shaken. Frightened, maybe?

"Maes, is everything all right?" he asked slowly, carefully, as though his voice would scare his friend away into some black abyss.

"Yes. No. Maybe," came the hesitant reply, followed by a deep, ragged sigh.

Roy frowned; he was unaccustomed to hearing that tone from _him_, of all people. He knew he should have asked, should have questioned why, but he could not, for he knew the venture would be fruitless. The tone in which Maes Hughes spoke was not one for telling tales and stories of the broken soul.

"Well, I gotta go. There's somewhere I'd like to visit," he said instead, gently tapping his finger against his chin. "See you at three."

"Right. Oh, and Roy?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful on the streets. You may be hard-headed, but that can only stop a bullet so much."

Small chuckle. Tone changing, slightly. Lighthearted humor, almost.

"Then I'll be sure to wear a helmet," Roy replied jokingly.

They said their good-byes, and the line went dead.

Careful not to disturb the resting place of the dead fly, Roy went down the hall to his bedroom to change his clothes.

* * *

The mirror was shattered, cracked and miserable.

Reflections cast in perfect white, with many others in view.

The peacock's feathers shone brighter than the rainbow in the sky above.

He saw it. It was comforting, oddly, making his heart warm and body relax.

But as he gazed out the window, streaked with old rain, he saw the colors dim to pale white and black.

The gray followed, false citrine also.

The substance came before him. His heart began to race. Sweat gathered on his brow.

The world became a mix of imperfect white and red, no longer pale. A melted vision of hideous brilliance.

The spotted panther emerged and pounced on the green lion. The blue-beaked crow flew away, far, far away. To freedom.

His hands hurt.

* * *

Black hands opposite, feuding. Noon, past thirty.

Roy sat in the pew, wooden and carved by skilled hands long laid to rest. He glanced upward; the ceiling was fine granite, decorated with ornate depictions of celestial beings. Angels in the architecture, trapped, wings bound by stone. He frowned, for those angels did not know the liberties of the sky.

Earlier he had been greeted by an unwelcome yearning for a white realm, a place untouched by blackness. He tapped his fingers against his knees, feeling out of place in the holy surroundings. He was a stained man, the black spot in all the pretty white, for the devil had touched his flesh.

Back in his room, his small haven, his mind had been invaded by thoughts and images so bright, yet dark. Triggered by a simple glance to his bandaged wrist, he saw that black angel, thrown from the highest reaches of Heaven.

He looked at it now, that white bracelet of linen, and toyed with it gingerly, mind ablaze with what he wished a dream.

_On fire, burning, melting away_

No longer could he look at his wrist; instead, he turned to the heavens, where angels could not fly.

_To ashes_

But his mind still screamed and flashed and reeked of that blackness.

_Lungs and heart spewing from an open mouth_

He had no answers to the questions that weaved through the images in his mind, and he wondered if anyone did. God, maybe? The angels trapped in the architecture?

_That could not scream_

"It really is beautiful."

_Mute_

Roy jerked his head, startled. Standing beside him, dressed in black and white robes, was the priest, eyes turned to the ornate ceiling. A friendly smile spread on the older man's wrinkled face as he turned his gaze down to Roy.

"Don't you think it's beautiful?" the priest asked softly.

"Yes, it's captivating," Roy said slowly, not quite sure how to answer. He did not find the granite scene beautiful, because the artist had depicted the angels as trapped and helpless. But it was captivating, and he could not imagine how much time and effort had gone into creating such a magnificent masterpiece. Captivating, but not beautiful.

"It's good when you can see beauty in things, even though times are dark," the priest said. "It means that your eyes are open and your heart is hopeful. Many people have lost hope and have closed their eyes to a better, beautiful tomorrow."

"Yes, Father," he said, agreeing. His eyes were closed, and his heart too, for he could no longer see the beauty in the world. Not even in God's house.

"My son," the priest said, placing a hand on Roy's shoulder, "things will get better."

"But _how_? Things are just so..."

"Eyes open," the priest interrupted, "and heart hopeful."

Roy nodded his head, bringing his gaze to his lap. He could not argue with the holy man, could not bring himself to crush someone's beliefs when times truly called for hope. But his problems could not be solved by such mediocre advice.

A silence overwhelmed the atmosphere, _choked_ it carefully with delicate fingers; Roy could not take it, could not stand the silence, and so he posed a very simple question, one that had been looming in his thoughts from day one.

"Father, do you think this is punishment?" he asked slowly, eyes flickering down to his bandaged wrist. During the Eastern Rebellion, he was fond of saying that his punishment would come, that Death would meet him in a crueler fashion that he had met those innocent people. What he had seen in the past few days was far worse than his time spent at war.

However, there came no reply, and at this, he turned to face the robed man, finding him absent from his spot. Roy looked all around him, but could not find the man in sight; he had left, seemingly vanished, and Roy felt somewhat disheartened by that.

He frowned, turning again to study the gray faces of the winged-beings.

For trapping those beautiful angels in cold stone, the world was suffering. They could not fly. They could not vanquish the darkness. They could not open eyes and keep hearts hopeful. The angels trapped in the architecture could not help mankind, and so mankind was falling to ruin.

Black hands together, friends once more. One. Two hours to waste.

He remained in the pew and looked at all the beautiful granite wings and halos, while outside the world fell apart.

* * *

Images—memories—built in his mind's eyes: screams, racing for the prize of marriage, blood, hide-and-seek in the woods.

"J-just playing under the r-rainbow in the sky above . . ."

And he could see it, there, shining. All the colors he ever loved, together in a grand arch. The rain had stopped, the sky had lightened, and colors shown in the fair mist. Beneath it all, two boys were playing in the puddles: one hiding under pulled grass and branches, and the other searching, searching, and searching but unable to find.

Never able to find.

_Because he's dead._

Ed screamed.

His hands hurt.

* * *

Stubble pricked the palm of his hand as he rubbed his cheek, a soft sigh leaving his lips. He felt like he was going to fall apart at any moment. Arms detaching from his body, legs falling to the freshly-turned soil, mind splitting into halves of sanity and insanity. _Under the beautiful blue sky._ He felt like he was going to fall apart, and he knew that one day he would_. And the full sun. _Everything had been carelessly thrown onto him, thrust into his hands. Murder and abuse and every dark pit of the human mind. All of it had been left for him to solve, for him to cope with for the world.

It was killing him, poisoning him slowly.

Pretty felt hats drenched in mercury.

People, all wearing black and grim faces, surrounded him (no, the casket, the casket), making him feel uncomfortable and small (and dead). His body stiffened, froze, unlike his troubled mind.

It was all their fault. He knew it was. Could point the finger. At them. All of them.

Yes, yes, his mind had soured during the short hours of the night. The sounds, the screams, the images were all so strong in his head, swirling round and round like a sickening cesspool of human hatred. There was no longer any hope for a grand end of salvation and deliverance; mankind had fucked up any chance of that peaceful ending with its latest doings.

A child.

Hughes looked down at the closed casket, which sat along the opening of nature's deep womb.

A fucking child.

The kid was dead and that was proof enough of humanity's end. Alphonse Elric was dead and mankind would pay for that.

Tears trickled down his face, hesitantly and softly. He had gone far too long without, and he cursed himself for every wet strand that fell upon his cheeks. It showed weakness. And he turned away from the crowd, all wearing black and grim faces, and wiped the tears away. But in the distance, passing under the metal arch of the cemetery's name, was a familiar figure, and he found comfort, though small, as he left the grave to meet the man.

"Hey, man," he greeted, shaking hands and switching into a tight, brief embrace. Roy Mustang was dressed in a fine suit of black, one Hughes knew was reserved only for such dark occasions. Deep lines creased his face, making him appear far beyond his actual age. Worn out and ragged. Drying up to dust.

"I take I'm not late."

"Not at all. C'mon," Hughes said, leading the way back to the grave.

As he stood amongst the few others, Roy realized the artistic beauty of the casket: polished wood, cherry, brass rails along the sides, and streaked with sunshine. It hid the ugliness, protected it from peering eyes. But it was beautiful. And beautifully obvious the artist had bled his fingers dry to create the gorgeous sheen.

The sacred words of the priest fell upon his deaf ears as useless. He was entranced, his entire focus taken by the weaving, intwining black lines on the casket.

When the holy book closed and the crowd dispersed, he didn't notice.

He followed the lines again. Saw past them.

When thick-armed men began to lower the casket and bury it, he didn't notice.

He was stricken with what laid under the lines and the polished wood.

The image burned his mind. Of bone and rotting flesh.

"Roy?"

He had stood still, mind numb from the imagined image, until the men had finished and left, leaving him alone. But at the familiar voice, his mind became aware of his surroundings and he turned his gaze to the man. The sun was setting.

"In a way," Roy began softly, giving a subtle nod toward the fresh grave, "I'm kinda glad he's no longer with us. He can rest now, right? For once, he can sleep peacefully, with no more worries of trying to fix this messed up world. He can just sleep. He can just—"

When glass cracks, it's no longer so pretty. It cracks, then shatters, the pieces scattering in a million sharp shards. They're jagged in their edges with cruel, pointed tips.

They were piercing his flesh, burying in his heart to touch his soul. He could feel them sinking in, quickly escaping as a wet coolness on his face that traitorously betrayed every ounce of dignity in his being.

"Maes, is this my fault? Is he dead because of me?" he asked, head bowed and eyes shut in a desperate attempt to retain his strength. The wet shards slipped by. He hated it, but he wasn't strong enough to grasp them, to hold them back. They stung him. They _hurt_.

"I didn't stop them, and I knew what w-was going to happen. I _knew_, Maes, but I didn't s-st—"

A hand touched his shoulder, hushing his broken voice; he could feel the warmth grace his flesh even through the thickness of his jacket. He slowly raised his gaze to meet the man he so fondly thought of.

"I think you should come with me, Roy," came the soft reply, hesitance lining every word.

* * *

Boxes of evidence reached toward the white ceiling and loose papers covered Hughes' desk. The room was dim with afternoon sunlight, the bulb having burnt out at some point.

"I've been investigating what happened in the desert."

The office, usually kept so organized and neat, was a box of chaos.

"Of course, what I've been looking most into was the Elric brothers' captivity."

His voice died away, like the light bulb had just faded away to nothingness.

He coughed, lowering himself down in his chair and casually picking up a paper from the desk.

"I know, Roy. Almost everything that happened to them, I know," he said slowly, taking his time to pick out the exact words. If he wasn't careful, he would say it all in one breath, and he worried it might kill the man. Small doses.

"For some reason, the Xing government took pity on the Ishbalans. They took them in and supported them, and after what must have been years of brewing hatred for _us_, they teamed up. Started building these laboratories in the desert catacombs directly between our borders."

"How many of these labs are there?" Roy asked, propping himself against the desk.

"We're not sure. There are hundreds of the catacombs, supposedly, but we just don't know how many have been converted into labs or where exactly they are."

"Go on."

"Yeah, right," Hughes nodded. "In these labs, they began experimenting with drugs, and to test them they would at first use them on each other, but that got too dangerous. So naturally, they took in a third party."

"Civilians."

"That's right. Just small villages at first, but in the beginning trials, majority of the villagers died. They ran out of test subjects and were forced to go into bigger areas, which just so happened to be in our territory. When this started happening, we were called in. The military, I mean."

"So they were plotting chemical warfare?"

"That's what I think. The drugs they were testing were...cruel. Meant to kill. Meant to cause chaos and insanity."

"They were going to attack us," Roy concluded, absently rubbing his cheek.

"They already did."

The voice that spoke was grim and dark, rough. Roy could hear the bitterness flowing from the usually upbeat man.

"The suicides," Hughes said. "Everyone just killing themselves over night. The tap water everyone was drinking with, bathing with, cooking with was poisoned."

"With what?"

"Devil's Whisper. According to the files, this particular drug had been in production for nearly three years. It makes the user hallucinate and inevitably attempt suicide. Over a dozen people died from it. Only three survived the trials."

"Who were they?"

"A woman by the name of Susette Runa," Hughes replied, looking at the paper he had been holding between his fingers. "She's in a hospital in the north, receiving both physical and mental help. The other person was accidentally injected with the drug. We found him dead in the catacombs, burned alive."

Roy remained silent. He remembered killing an Ishbalan, snapping his fingers to ignite his brown flesh. The stench of burning flesh was still fresh in his physical memory.

"The other survivor was-"

"Ed!" Roy interrupted, eyes wide. "It makes sense now. He was full of that shit when we took him out of the catacombs. We didn't know what was going on, but now it makes sense. While we were taking him back to the base, he snapped. He just went insane and started screaming, grabbed Hawkeye's gun."

"Yeah, I heard," Hughes commented softly after a moment of silence. "Anyway, you're right. The blood samples matched the contents of the vile he was found with. He had been infected shortly before you had arrived. But before then, they used him as a guinea pig for it. They tested him over and over, almost a dozen times. Have you noticed the puncture wounds on his arms?"

"Sadly, yes, I did." Roy turned away from the man, looked up at the ceiling to watch the fan turn. His fists tightened at his sides. "What else did they do to him?"

"Ah, that was the main drug they used on him. They also tested a wide range of sedatives and hallucinogens, a prevention medicine for hyperthermia, even a drug that stops alchemy. They all worked too."

Roy muttered a swear under his breath, his teeth grinding. He had wondered why such a brilliant alchemist like Ed had been held captive for so long and abused so terribly. He had wondered the same about Alphonse.

"Roy, I think you should know that Ed fought back. He didn't go down without a fight. It's all been recorded in his files. They called him a Hell Hound on several occasions," he said, chuckling lightly.

"That sounds about right."

"He gave them a run for their money," Hughes added, letting the paper float back to the desk.

"But what about Al?" Roy asked in a bare whisper. "What happened to him?"

"I..."

Tension rose in the air as the silence grew. The atmosphere changed drastically, and Roy wanted out. He wanted out of the room, into the fresh air, because the walls were closing in and the air was slipping out through cracks.

_Not yet._

Roy was still turned away from his friend, and he only heard body movements and button clicks. Then, the protesting crackle of a speaker. He faced Maes at last, but found him walking around his desk and heading for the door.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice ragged.

Maes Hughes closed the door behind him just as a scream came through the mesh grate of the cassette player.

_"It's just us, Alphonse. I've decided that I want to remember this moment for the rest of my life. Years from now, long after you've rotted to ash, I'll listen to this. And smile. How. I. Will. Smile!"_

_"N-no..."_

_"Now, now, you're going to love me for this. That brother of yours sure did! Speaking of... I bet he's being fucked so hard right now. If you concentrate hard enough, you just might feel the pleasure he's feeling at this very moment."_

_"Don't...t-tou—"_

_"I can see it in your face, Al. All of that pain is catching up with you, isn't it? The drug is wearing off. Oh, and I was worried you wouldn't be able to feel this!"_

_"Stop, n-n—!"_

_"Ah, fuck, you're so tight. Shit, your brother didn't do his job very well."_

_"Please, s-stop!"_

_"You pretty thing, just pretend I'm your dear Edward. Just imagine that it's him inside you again. Fuck! It's a sin to be this tight. We're gonna have to fix this."_

"Oh, fuck," Roy said, chest heaving, eyes wide, mind burning.

_"No m-more, please..."_

_"Just relax. This will only take a minute."_

One blood-curdling scream assaulted his ears. He could feel that boy's pain.

"God, no."

_"Oh, sweetie, how pretty your blood is!"_

"Shit."

_"Now, let us try this ag—"_

Roy slammed his fist down on the control panel in a crude attempt to hush the man's words and the onslaught of agonized screams that had not once faltered. That boy was never meant to scream; he shouldn't have even known how to make such a sound, but there it was, one terrible shriek after another, like some fucking song for the disturbed. And that _goddamn motherfucker _could only laugh.

_"Ed!"_

_"That's right, Alphonse, that's right! Scream his name like you know so well how to do. Scream his name!"_

_"Edward! H-Help me!"_

Roy sank down against the desk, burying his head in his knees and covering his ears. The screams and the awful words still reached him, terrorized him.

He could picture what was happening, despite only knowing the obvious. It was a bloody afair and knowing that was enough to tear him down.

_"Stop! Please! God!"_

_"You whiny little bitch, just take it."_

_"Please, please!"_

_"Little fucker."_

Then, the screams stopped, the desperate pleas too. And Roy knew Alphonse Elric was dead in that moment. Whatever had happened beyond the violation of his of body had killed him.

The sounds died away, soft static taking the place of screams and shrieks. It was over, but he did not stir from his pitiful position. He stayed, mind numb, legs unwilling to move.

"Roy?"

The door had opened. Footsteps and voice followed. He didn't notice.

"Roy? Say something," Hughes said. "Please."

He looked up, slowly. His face was red and streaked with tears.

"I'm sorry, Roy. I shouldn't have let you listen to that, but...it was just too hard for me to say."

"I understand," the raven-haired man said in a rough whisper.

"There's a lot you need to know, Roy. I won't lie about that. But some of it is just too much for me, and I've seen and heard it all."

Roy nodded as Hughes sat next to him on the tile floor, and once again, the silence grew. Minutes went by on the clock and there was barely any sunlight in the room. And then Roy had a revelation of sorts.

"Hughes?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you understand what he was saying on that tape?"

"Alphonse?"

"No, that man."

"What do you mean?"

"What he was saying... It was like something had happened between Ed and Al, something _bad_."

"You mean sexually. Yeah, I caught that," Hughes admitted.

"It was probably just talk, right?"

"Probably."

"Damn, I need a cigarette and a drink," Roy said, sighing, fingers slipping through his hair.

"But Colonel, you haven't smoked in years!"

"I wouldn't mind starting again."

"Well, I can't help you with that, but I do have something else." Hughes looked at his friend, his green eyes piercing the growing darkness. Then he eased himself to his feet and went out of sight. When he sat back down, he held the neck of a glass bottle. He twisted off the cap, took a swig, and passed it along.

"That's fine, Hughes. Quite a catch."

"Hey, Roy, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. Just haven't had the time, I guess."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Do you think Ed knows about Al? That he, y'know, passed?" Hughes asked, swallowing a large gulp of the amber liquid.

"God, I'm not sure if I'd prefer for him to know or not."

"I guess we'll cross that bridge later then. Here." He passed the bottle. Roy took a sip and passed it back.

Back and forth the bottle went until the stout glass was only moist and the room was dark.

No more worries.

* * *

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir, Major General Hakuro. He's dead. They tried all they could to save him, but the cuts were too deep."

"Shit, that's not what we need now," he muttered, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists. The room was suddenly smaller than it was. The stately banners on the wall seemed to fall from their place.

"Sir?" the yound man inquired.

"_What_, General?"

"Someone has to take his place, and you're the only one with the qualifications, not to mention the rank."

"You're right," he said.

"What about the public, sir? Do we tell them?"

"No, don't tell them the Fuhrer's dead," he said, lowering himself in the plush chair behind the executive desk. "We don't need that information leaking out to the enemy."

"Yes, sir."

The room seemed larger than it was, and the stately banners set themselves right in their place.

* * *

**Like I said, ending ain't that great, but hey, something's better than nothing!**

**Again, special thanks to Taranova! If you like Mizer, then you will definitely LOVE her fic Blue! I certainly do! It's like readable crack!**

**So yeah, please review :D  
PS: Think you found all of those hidden messages? Post 'em and I'll message you with the answers! I think it'll be fun lol There are only five, unless I missed one or two lol  
PSS: Remember, if you're confused about something, you can either: 1) rant about all the plot holes and whatnot, though this is not preferred 2) ask me about it, 3) go on a zombie killing rampage, or 4) wait it out until you get answers in following chapters. The choice is your's. Choose wisely. XD**

**Thanks!**


End file.
